DVD Review - The Devil's Woods (2016)

The Devil’s Woods , an Irish horror film from 2016. Released on DVD from Left Films on September 12th.

Four friends on their way to a music festival take a detour and spend one night in the woods before heading to the festival. However little do they know this will be a camping trip from hell.

I went into this film very excited. As a slasher fan I was so looking forward to seeing what this film would pay out like. Also being a fan of Left – the company that released the film I knew that it would at least be decent. That is exactly what it was. I was pleasantly surprised that this film was as good as it was, although I will be honest I was hoping for slightly more from it but it did its job and had a very disturbing finale.

I will say this the film was pretty generic for a slasher film and follows pretty much the same plot lines and trates as most slashers, but I do not mind this at all, This was actually part of the films charm.

I liked that it wasn’t trying to over sell itself or trying to be this revolutionary slasher it was what it was, a decent and chilling slasher film.

I actually found myself thinking that this would have been one of those films you might find back in the 9-‘s in the VHS store and stumble upon it and check it out and see this really messed up horror film.

I haven’t seen many Irish horror films so I was looking forward to this.

For the most part everything was pretty good, for this kind of film, The acting was decent, the store was decent and the atmosphere was decent.

Where I praise the film is in the cinematography. I think that the use of red in some scenes was really effective in what was going to happen in the film. However probably my biggest negative was in the scoring of the film. Although the film had a fantastic score there were time that I felt that the music was too over powering for the film. It took a little away from the scene. I felt that by toning down the music and have it be a little more suitable might have been more effective.

I do not know if this was intentional by the film makers but I really got a deliverance vibe from this film. Just in the way it plays out.

I think that the film was bordering on generic until right at the end where (ill not spoil it too much) things got very messed up, I do not get disturbed by much, but this scene is something I can not handle seeing in horror films so for me the ending really made the film. I actually find with a lot of European horror films and British horror films that there not afraid to be gritty and not afraid of a little harsher films.

The films ending really reminded me of the English horror film Eden Lake, which again was one fo the most disturbing horror films I have seen.

Over all I think The Devil’s Woods is really good and I am so excited to see it get a UK DVD release. I am so pleased its getting one.

I would definitely recommend the film to horror fans.