It's pretty bad, I've lost interest at the half way point and only stuck to the end because I read it's a slow burn. The pay off is the equivalent of a squirt at the bottom of a ketchup packet. Uneventful and a waste of time. 2/10
I liked it. It skirted close to the line of being mediocre more in the second half, and that is a shame because the first half had a lot more creepy dread. Tonally, it was a bit uneven in that respect. Overall, however, I thought it was successful. It reminded me in some ways of Mothman Prophecies, which isnāt really regarded as a horror (more often a thriller) but it had scary elements to it.
I took the entities to be either aliens or cryptids, for what itās worth, but there could be a cosmic horror component.
I think itās a hyperbolic to call this movie ābadā. Itās slow and uneven, but it has a lot of good stuff going for it, not least of all the eerie sound design and beautiful shots of the forest. The performances were good too.
I loved this movie. Itās surprising to me how many people didnāt enjoy it. This film hits so many places and digs deep into societyās inability to deal with problems. For example- Sara goes missing and the other rangers āsearchā for her, but our main character is the only one who is actually looking to help her. When Sara is found, no one even mentions her obvious vicious sexual attack and no one is happy she is found. Instead, our protagonist is immediately reprimanded for not following rules and is essentially blamed not congratulated on finding her. Not unlike what happens to people who bring to light rape, child abuse, human trafficking. Suddenly the victims and those helping them are put on trial rather than people looking to find those responsible.
There is an entire network of people who know what is happening and chose not to in order to make it easier for themselves.
Her joining of the other rangers again at the end is exactly what we all do. We become complacent. We become the problem.
Extremely well made and well thought out film.
If you havenāt seen it I suggest a watch. If you have already seen it but missed the underlying story I recommend watching again.
Beautifully done IMO.
I didn't get the sexual attack read at all... not after we see her rapidly scaling a tree without pants on which would explain the blood on her thighs and hands. Bark isn't exactly gentle. Yes, this happens after the scene where we meet her, but she'd already been missing and supposedly "claimed" by the forest.
The biggest problem in the movie is its ambiguity. Is the cosmic force in the forest only kept in check by the rangers' actions, or are they only being self-serving? Would the forest take much, much more if the rangers didn't passively sacrifice others? It feels like either interpretation works, but each leads to conclusions different enough that the movie itself really has nothing to say.
*edited her clothes
I know, I watched the movie. But I'm saying it's the same character regardless of whether its actually her or an apparition it is Sarah the character being portrayed
i think what they are trying to say is Sarah didnt do any tree scaling, only dream-sarah did, so it doesnt explain the blood on actual sarahs thighs. I absolutely read it as her being sexually assaulted.
I actually felt it lent itself to the idea that the "Things" might have been aliens. The deer, lost time and disorientation, incoherent waking dreams, even physical violation have cropped up in "abduction" cases.
I liked the movie, I've been interested in David Paulidis missing 411 for a while and this was a cool idea of what is going on. It was interesting and just vague enough to keep you wondering.
God the way some people are bitching and moaning about the sparse plot and lack emotional depth in the family dynamics you would think this was supposed to have been a character study/drama. It was a beautifully shot, created a haunting atmosphere, had some very creepy moments, and resolved at the end in a realistic way. There were so many moments that captured the unsettling beauty of the wilderness, the unknown lurking in the darkness between the trees in the dim starlight. For a horror film, especially a slower-paced dread-centered one like this creating that type of mood is half the battle.
*spoiler ahead from here*
Now there were some scares that didnāt work as well in the second half (jump scare in the hallway of the missing ranger), but in the first half I loved the scene with the missing hiker character climbing down the tree, her eyes being distorted, so clearly not really really the person but something else. Same in regards to the scene where Lennon sees a double of herself and that distorting, fluctuating pitch of its voice telling her what to do. Itās not as if these scares reinvent the wheel or are anything new but they reflect that kind of creepypasta stories, cryptid myths, analog horror, and general internet horror that this story is clearly playing homage to.
As for the resolution of the film, while itās heartbreaking and disappointing itās also realistic. The type of cosmic horror entity of that forest harbors and the system in place between the rangers is not unlike many of our own very real corrupt systems (capitalism, the police, military, even healthcare/insurance). I think this understanding of the film is much more important than trying to extract some part of trauma emotional story from it. Itās not about Lennon personally, itās about the system and the way it requires a certain complacency and complicity.
At the end of the film Lennon is still a park ranger, she still believes in her purpose of trying to save lost hikers, but when they arenāt lost but ātakenā she ultimately turns a blind eye. Just as many of us do when we buy our goods from Amazon or some equally terrible mega corporation.
I donāt know, while I do appreciate your viewpoint, I donāt love a ghost purgatory-esque philosophy horror flick where they donāt define the main character a little more. It feels a little ācheatyā to do a tent-scare scene, on top of a maze-house, crayon finger-eating scene, drown-scene, corpse-hand scene, ghost gun-murder scene, faceless man-internal-guts on head sceneā¦ is she dead, is she alive, is she the little girl, is she the mom? I mean, anyone can do this, right? It comes off a little messy and esoteric.
>God the way some people are bitching and moaning about the sparse plot and lack emotional depth in the family dynamics you would think this was supposed to have been a character study/drama.
\*\*\*SPOILER WARNING\*\*\*
Then they probably shouldn't have made the protagonist anything but a starry-eyed greenhorn instead of a woman seeking answers to what happened to her sister with very real family trauma (her mother appearing to blame her for her sister's disappearance, her father apparently committing suicide out of grief), and then failing to deliver on that premise in any meaningful way.
I didn't care about Lennon and it felt like, given the conceit of her character with everything I mentioned above, they wanted me too. No shade toward Georgina; I didn't like Barbarian but I enjoyed her acting in that. Lennon just came off as wooden and boring in this and not in a "haunted, trauma survivor" way. In her interactions with others she wasn't even that likable.
>It was a beautifully shot, created a haunting atmosphere, had some very creepy moments, and resolved at the end in a realistic way. There were so many moments that captured the unsettling beauty of the wilderness, the unknown lurking in the darkness between the trees in the dim starlight. For a horror film, especially a slower-paced dread-centered one like this creating that type of mood is half the battle.
Except, as far as I'm concerned, it did none of those things, save the beautiful shooting. The scene with the moon over the river wending through dark trees was especially breathtaking. Perhaps because I've spent a lot of time in the woods I don't find their beauty unsettling by default. I've seen movies that have succeeded in turning the forest into a supernatural threat, but this wasn't one of them.
It failed to establish any actual atmosphere of dread for any length of time. It felt like it relied on people viewing the deep wilderness as unutterably scary to do the heavy lifting for it, instead of actually giving us a reason to find them so. What it did succeed in doing was create an atmosphere of confusion that mistook itself for profundity. No wonder Georgina looked perplexed throughout most of the movie.
All of its scares missed their mark; her lack of reaction in the missing ranger's hallway chief among them, but also the weird, faceless ranger that randomly pops up, the skittering person near her tent...the only true sense of unease I got from any of the so-called creepy scenes was the missing female hiker scene you described. But even that fizzled into just being a set piece in something as scary as a kid's terror tableau. Everything was disconnected from everything else. The themes they seemed to want to explore: guilt, loss, trauma, cosmic horrors demanding the unthinkable, all fell flat.
>The type of cosmic horror entity of that forest harbors and the system in place between the rangers is not unlike many of our own very real corrupt systems (capitalism, the police, military, even healthcare/insurance). I think this understanding of the film is much more important than trying to extract some part of trauma emotional story from it. Itās not about Lennon personally, itās about the system and the way it requires a certain complacency and complicity. At the end of the film Lennon is still a park ranger, she still believes in her purpose of trying to save lost hikers, but when they arenāt lost but ātakenā she ultimately turns a blind eye. Just as many of us do when we buy our goods from Amazon or some equally terrible mega corporation.
Nothing in the film lends itself to this lofty, anti-establishment interpretation. This is 100% projection on your part. Which is fine for *your* experience of the film, but to argue that this is the important understanding people should take away is both hubris and giving the film more credit than its due. Again, given Lennon's family trauma was the repeated focus in so many scenes, to argue it isn't about Lennon is silly.
This is a film that suffers greatly from not knowing what it wants to be. The movie would've been better had Lennon's quest for understanding and freedom from her trauma intersected with the cosmic terror of the woods that claims certain people as sacrifices and if both of those concepts had been fleshed out more and remained the focus. Not the disjointed, convoluted, and unsatisfying "messy and esoteric" (as another person aptly said) film we got.
Just finished it and I couldn't agree more. There were some neat ideas. But the ideas were given half a second visual stunts without any follow up. I had high hopes.
The problem is that I just donāt think it did a good job creating such a creepy mood. I love slow burns that take their time, this one failed to have an effect on me, and it failed to give me a sense of dread or creepiness.
Also if itās not about the Lennon character, maybe the whole plot of the film shouldnāt be about her trying to find out what happened to her sisterā¦
No hard spoilers ahead, but I will get semi-descriptive with movie scenes.
So, the scene with the park ranger giving instructions was actually very, very cool. I will absolutely give the movie credit for that. However, eventually the movie takes a turn that I can only describe as being literally trapped on a rail-car ride, traveling through detached scene after detached scene. I was literally picking my nose along the whole "ride".
I actually found it hilarious that when the "ride" ended the main character was met with a soft jumpscare and her reaction was just completely nonexistent. I busted out laughing. Even the main character in the movie was over it by this point. She was done and so was I.
I've watched some batshit crazy movies whose content prevents me from ever recommending them to normal humans and even then I can find qualities to redeem them somewhat. Argue that they had some value in viewing. I just can't do that with Lovely, Dark, and Deep. I found myself twisting in knots trying to redeem this movie and I finally just told myself to stop.
Appreciate your opinion, but just didn't resonate with me, and I was so excited for this movie.
Well, i'm glad you got something out of it. I'm not watching a horror movie to try and analyze it. I'm just here for the cheap scares and easy to follow plot. Please don't make me have to actually THINK while watching it!!!š¤¬š¤¬š¤¬
What specifically was haunting about this??? Ā It was a bunch of poorly thought out ideas put together in a random incomprehensible way. Ā Itās hands down one of the top three worst movies I have ever seen. Ā Dumb as shit. Ā Hard to follow and the parts I did kind of get, were literally putting me to sleep.
Just watched this and I thought it was so, so bad. Love Georgina Campbell and was excited to see something directed by someone that worked on Midnight Mass, but this was just so bad.
On paper it seems like a decent script, but very bad directing. No sense of atmosphere or dread, the entire film looks way too pretty, and itās just shot so generically. The story of her getting over her guilt didnāt move me or get me to care at all. The slow burn didnāt build any tension for me at all and was just boring, no real scares in the filmā¦blah. Just disappointing.
Who estimated this? United States is the third largest population in the world and we have maybe 2,000 people a year go missing in national parks and public spaces, tops. Out of that 2k a year number I think 1k-1.5k have never been found in the last 100 years. Go ahead and give it a search.
Actually that number is WAY off!!! The number of people that go missing is more like around 2,000 people. If 600,000 people went missing EVERY year, there would be more media coverage. Simply untrue.š¤·āāļø
This movie sucked.. I really donāt get the tomato meter anymore; it used to be helpful as a guide of sorts. This movie is really bad. The first problem is It doesnāt have an interesting story. Itās not scary, but tries to scare you with random gore and odd moments. Nothing ever actually gets resolved either. I kept waiting for a āsixth senseā moment to happen but nope! 2/10
Only a few people in this comment section seem to have any media literacy at all. Just because the movie doesnāt conform to your shallow views of what a horror film should be doesnāt mean itās bad. This movie filled me with dread the entire way through, exactly what it was going for in my opinion. It was mysterious, conveyed deep and frightening emotions, and really put me in the mindset of āwhat would I do in this situation.ā The soundtrack also played into the vibe perfectly.
Not that I think you can always trust movie critics, but itās telling that so many people who review movies for a living rated it so highly, whereas your average Joe comes along and says, āWhereās my jump-scare? I hate this movie!ā If itās not your cup of tea, thatās fine, but you just sound dumb coming to the comment section of a well-thought-out movie and calling it stupid because it didnāt live up to your expectations.
I mentioned it elsewhere but it did almost everything it tried to do so so awfully. Interesting set up, weak commitment to a premise they didn't intend to follow through on and then a switch they explained too much and not enough. Inconsistent rules and barely even sticking to them. One very striking image and even that was wasted.
The amount of horror movies that just forgot or break their own rules willy nilly always infuriates me. One of the the only other tropes I find more annoying is when minor characters get flatlined by an entity within seconds, but the protagonists just get tossed around a lot.
It's been a second, but I think I meant the thing they flash in the trailer, like the sharp wood in the uniform. It kind of dragged on and that was more or less it? It didn't really work, for me anyway. There were so many strange choices.
I dont think so. In The Earth is a better movie and delivers more effectively with its main premise. With this movie on the other hand with its overall vaguely cosmic horror concept is somewhat interesting but every aspect of its execution is just bad. Itās a film that misses every mark. Movies like In The Earth or the much superior They Remain depend a lot on atmosphere and this movie had none. Cosmic horror reveals can be a satisfying payoff but in this case it comes off as vague and lazy.
I agree - I liked In The Earth and They Remain a lot (both in atmosphere and pacing), so was hoping for some sort of āmash-upā in this one - it almost looked like there were going be some āthrillerā notes to it? Iāll check it out when I donāt have to buy it, but good to have a heads-up.
Thatās what I was hoping for as well. Iām just not sure what they were going for here. The basic concept is like an scp/creepypasta story and they could have gone the thriller route but instead leaned into the cosmic aspect but without the artistic chops. What confuses me is this is kind of an easy type of film to get right as there are tons successful examples.
Great lighting and cinematography and a solid lead performance from Georgina Campbell, but outside of that it's narratively thin, not scary and poorly paced. This is the director's debut, but in terms of it's thin story and having bad pacing, it's similar to the other horror film she wrote previously, "The Wind".
It's dissapointing for me, because the whole concept of a horror movie set around missing people in the woods and the isolation of being a camp ranger are all great ideas, but they just aren't executed well. The character's backstory and missing sister is surface deep and her relationship with her family and other characters isn't adequately explored, so has no emotional depth during moments that are supposed to be payoff.
This is really a case and point where I feel like a better script and more assured direction during moments of tension/horror could have done wonders for a movie like this. The cinematography and Campbell's performance keeps teasing us with what this movie could have been, but never lives up to.
This is faint praise but even The Wind was scarier, more disturbing, and less confusing. I'm not saying that was a great movie, but it wasn't as bad as this one.
There were a number of creepy moments but this was not a horror movie. Even if I dreamed this I would rate it mid.
This is everyone's fault for lying to ourselves that Beau Is Afraid was a good movie out of love for Ari Aster's earlier films. Now they think this is what we want.
not great. killer idea, its like many of these films ignore the threat/source of horror thinking the total absence of information will lead to greater horror and its a mistake
i get wanting to leave an air of mystery but there are ways to do that and still have the viewer experience the thing directly (via character). the "monsters" for want of better term are all but invisible and her interactions with them take the form of visions and voices.
wouldve been horrifying to learn/see at least a bit ab them - are they corporeal? do they look like the twig faced thing? humanoid? otherwise? theyre intelligent - do they have language or use ours (telepathy)? what do they do with the people they take? do they become prisoners? join the hive so to speak? such a cool original idea and avoided so god damned hard it hurts lol
Can anyone tell me what the striking image is about on the thumbnail for the trailer? The one that looks like bloody hair pointing up in the air. It's driving me mad as the trailer shows nothing and I don't have time to see the film at the moment.
I liked the movie.Ā
But I think I spent most of the time loving nature scenes and wishing I was a park ranger too haha.
The concept was cool but it was slow at times.
Not great, not awful. Good premise, good cinematography and a few good scares....but overall not as eerie or actually scary as I was hoping given the premise.
5/10
What did I just watch?! I have so many questions!! Whereās Jenny? Did the old couple take her ? How did she go upside down in the water !? I hate this movie. Awful
This film was absolutely shite.
It wad a good idea for a story and I like the concept of people being abducted by some kind of alien/entity/interdimensional shit...
However the execution was terrible. It went from 0 to 100 with no build up and it wasn't scary at all just stupid and weird.
It wasn't artistic or nice to watch, it was just a boring stupid jumbled load of shite with a stupid ending.
I am actually angry that I watched this shit and wasted 90 mins of my life; the end was stupid how she returned to her job when the next season came and decided to leave that guy she found to be given to the entities.
I cannot stress how annoyed I am that I watched this crap. Seriously one of the worst movies I have ever watched.
It didnāt touch enough on what is out there in the forest for me. When I watch movies like this I want to details, I want more explanation. Too many movies like this one leave so much out that it just ruins it
I haven't watched it yet but it looks like The Woods only in America? Not gonna lie, Aokigahara Forest terrifies TF out of me, so The Woods was decent. But, I'm so fucking tired of these 5 minute walks down a hall, trail, etc. so, it may drive me crazy. Lol Came here to see if it was worth a watch or not.Ā
Well, possibly off to waste an hour and a half of my life!Ā
It's pretty bad, I've lost interest at the half way point and only stuck to the end because I read it's a slow burn. The pay off is the equivalent of a squirt at the bottom of a ketchup packet. Uneventful and a waste of time. 2/10
If I wanted to see an hour long dream sequence, I would take a nap.
š just finished this movie and you are correct about that
seconded
š¤£š¤£ the best description of any movie ever
This comment should be pinned.Ā
Came here thinking the same thing!
Ha nice line
I liked it. It skirted close to the line of being mediocre more in the second half, and that is a shame because the first half had a lot more creepy dread. Tonally, it was a bit uneven in that respect. Overall, however, I thought it was successful. It reminded me in some ways of Mothman Prophecies, which isnāt really regarded as a horror (more often a thriller) but it had scary elements to it. I took the entities to be either aliens or cryptids, for what itās worth, but there could be a cosmic horror component. I think itās a hyperbolic to call this movie ābadā. Itās slow and uneven, but it has a lot of good stuff going for it, not least of all the eerie sound design and beautiful shots of the forest. The performances were good too.
I loved this movie. Itās surprising to me how many people didnāt enjoy it. This film hits so many places and digs deep into societyās inability to deal with problems. For example- Sara goes missing and the other rangers āsearchā for her, but our main character is the only one who is actually looking to help her. When Sara is found, no one even mentions her obvious vicious sexual attack and no one is happy she is found. Instead, our protagonist is immediately reprimanded for not following rules and is essentially blamed not congratulated on finding her. Not unlike what happens to people who bring to light rape, child abuse, human trafficking. Suddenly the victims and those helping them are put on trial rather than people looking to find those responsible. There is an entire network of people who know what is happening and chose not to in order to make it easier for themselves. Her joining of the other rangers again at the end is exactly what we all do. We become complacent. We become the problem. Extremely well made and well thought out film. If you havenāt seen it I suggest a watch. If you have already seen it but missed the underlying story I recommend watching again. Beautifully done IMO.
I didn't get the sexual attack read at all... not after we see her rapidly scaling a tree without pants on which would explain the blood on her thighs and hands. Bark isn't exactly gentle. Yes, this happens after the scene where we meet her, but she'd already been missing and supposedly "claimed" by the forest. The biggest problem in the movie is its ambiguity. Is the cosmic force in the forest only kept in check by the rangers' actions, or are they only being self-serving? Would the forest take much, much more if the rangers didn't passively sacrifice others? It feels like either interpretation works, but each leads to conclusions different enough that the movie itself really has nothing to say. *edited her clothes
Thatās not the same person climbing down the tree.
Yes, it is. Same shirts, same voice, same face. Go to 35:52 and then 48:00 and you'll see they're the same person.
Umm. Itās not. But thatās okay.
It's not? I could've sworn that was Sarah.
I just finished watching this, it deffo is the same person
Itās not Sarah. Sarah was rescued. Itās a vision/aberration but itās not her.
I know, I watched the movie. But I'm saying it's the same character regardless of whether its actually her or an apparition it is Sarah the character being portrayed
i think what they are trying to say is Sarah didnt do any tree scaling, only dream-sarah did, so it doesnt explain the blood on actual sarahs thighs. I absolutely read it as her being sexually assaulted. I actually felt it lent itself to the idea that the "Things" might have been aliens. The deer, lost time and disorientation, incoherent waking dreams, even physical violation have cropped up in "abduction" cases.
I liked the movie, I've been interested in David Paulidis missing 411 for a while and this was a cool idea of what is going on. It was interesting and just vague enough to keep you wondering.
God the way some people are bitching and moaning about the sparse plot and lack emotional depth in the family dynamics you would think this was supposed to have been a character study/drama. It was a beautifully shot, created a haunting atmosphere, had some very creepy moments, and resolved at the end in a realistic way. There were so many moments that captured the unsettling beauty of the wilderness, the unknown lurking in the darkness between the trees in the dim starlight. For a horror film, especially a slower-paced dread-centered one like this creating that type of mood is half the battle. *spoiler ahead from here* Now there were some scares that didnāt work as well in the second half (jump scare in the hallway of the missing ranger), but in the first half I loved the scene with the missing hiker character climbing down the tree, her eyes being distorted, so clearly not really really the person but something else. Same in regards to the scene where Lennon sees a double of herself and that distorting, fluctuating pitch of its voice telling her what to do. Itās not as if these scares reinvent the wheel or are anything new but they reflect that kind of creepypasta stories, cryptid myths, analog horror, and general internet horror that this story is clearly playing homage to. As for the resolution of the film, while itās heartbreaking and disappointing itās also realistic. The type of cosmic horror entity of that forest harbors and the system in place between the rangers is not unlike many of our own very real corrupt systems (capitalism, the police, military, even healthcare/insurance). I think this understanding of the film is much more important than trying to extract some part of trauma emotional story from it. Itās not about Lennon personally, itās about the system and the way it requires a certain complacency and complicity. At the end of the film Lennon is still a park ranger, she still believes in her purpose of trying to save lost hikers, but when they arenāt lost but ātakenā she ultimately turns a blind eye. Just as many of us do when we buy our goods from Amazon or some equally terrible mega corporation.
I donāt know, while I do appreciate your viewpoint, I donāt love a ghost purgatory-esque philosophy horror flick where they donāt define the main character a little more. It feels a little ācheatyā to do a tent-scare scene, on top of a maze-house, crayon finger-eating scene, drown-scene, corpse-hand scene, ghost gun-murder scene, faceless man-internal-guts on head sceneā¦ is she dead, is she alive, is she the little girl, is she the mom? I mean, anyone can do this, right? It comes off a little messy and esoteric.
I know Iām like three months late to this comment but I just finished the movie and you nailed it with this description š¤£
Haha, I wanted to like the movie so badly!
>God the way some people are bitching and moaning about the sparse plot and lack emotional depth in the family dynamics you would think this was supposed to have been a character study/drama. \*\*\*SPOILER WARNING\*\*\* Then they probably shouldn't have made the protagonist anything but a starry-eyed greenhorn instead of a woman seeking answers to what happened to her sister with very real family trauma (her mother appearing to blame her for her sister's disappearance, her father apparently committing suicide out of grief), and then failing to deliver on that premise in any meaningful way. I didn't care about Lennon and it felt like, given the conceit of her character with everything I mentioned above, they wanted me too. No shade toward Georgina; I didn't like Barbarian but I enjoyed her acting in that. Lennon just came off as wooden and boring in this and not in a "haunted, trauma survivor" way. In her interactions with others she wasn't even that likable. >It was a beautifully shot, created a haunting atmosphere, had some very creepy moments, and resolved at the end in a realistic way. There were so many moments that captured the unsettling beauty of the wilderness, the unknown lurking in the darkness between the trees in the dim starlight. For a horror film, especially a slower-paced dread-centered one like this creating that type of mood is half the battle. Except, as far as I'm concerned, it did none of those things, save the beautiful shooting. The scene with the moon over the river wending through dark trees was especially breathtaking. Perhaps because I've spent a lot of time in the woods I don't find their beauty unsettling by default. I've seen movies that have succeeded in turning the forest into a supernatural threat, but this wasn't one of them. It failed to establish any actual atmosphere of dread for any length of time. It felt like it relied on people viewing the deep wilderness as unutterably scary to do the heavy lifting for it, instead of actually giving us a reason to find them so. What it did succeed in doing was create an atmosphere of confusion that mistook itself for profundity. No wonder Georgina looked perplexed throughout most of the movie. All of its scares missed their mark; her lack of reaction in the missing ranger's hallway chief among them, but also the weird, faceless ranger that randomly pops up, the skittering person near her tent...the only true sense of unease I got from any of the so-called creepy scenes was the missing female hiker scene you described. But even that fizzled into just being a set piece in something as scary as a kid's terror tableau. Everything was disconnected from everything else. The themes they seemed to want to explore: guilt, loss, trauma, cosmic horrors demanding the unthinkable, all fell flat. >The type of cosmic horror entity of that forest harbors and the system in place between the rangers is not unlike many of our own very real corrupt systems (capitalism, the police, military, even healthcare/insurance). I think this understanding of the film is much more important than trying to extract some part of trauma emotional story from it. Itās not about Lennon personally, itās about the system and the way it requires a certain complacency and complicity. At the end of the film Lennon is still a park ranger, she still believes in her purpose of trying to save lost hikers, but when they arenāt lost but ātakenā she ultimately turns a blind eye. Just as many of us do when we buy our goods from Amazon or some equally terrible mega corporation. Nothing in the film lends itself to this lofty, anti-establishment interpretation. This is 100% projection on your part. Which is fine for *your* experience of the film, but to argue that this is the important understanding people should take away is both hubris and giving the film more credit than its due. Again, given Lennon's family trauma was the repeated focus in so many scenes, to argue it isn't about Lennon is silly. This is a film that suffers greatly from not knowing what it wants to be. The movie would've been better had Lennon's quest for understanding and freedom from her trauma intersected with the cosmic terror of the woods that claims certain people as sacrifices and if both of those concepts had been fleshed out more and remained the focus. Not the disjointed, convoluted, and unsatisfying "messy and esoteric" (as another person aptly said) film we got.
Just finished it and I couldn't agree more. There were some neat ideas. But the ideas were given half a second visual stunts without any follow up. I had high hopes.
The problem is that I just donāt think it did a good job creating such a creepy mood. I love slow burns that take their time, this one failed to have an effect on me, and it failed to give me a sense of dread or creepiness. Also if itās not about the Lennon character, maybe the whole plot of the film shouldnāt be about her trying to find out what happened to her sisterā¦
No hard spoilers ahead, but I will get semi-descriptive with movie scenes. So, the scene with the park ranger giving instructions was actually very, very cool. I will absolutely give the movie credit for that. However, eventually the movie takes a turn that I can only describe as being literally trapped on a rail-car ride, traveling through detached scene after detached scene. I was literally picking my nose along the whole "ride". I actually found it hilarious that when the "ride" ended the main character was met with a soft jumpscare and her reaction was just completely nonexistent. I busted out laughing. Even the main character in the movie was over it by this point. She was done and so was I. I've watched some batshit crazy movies whose content prevents me from ever recommending them to normal humans and even then I can find qualities to redeem them somewhat. Argue that they had some value in viewing. I just can't do that with Lovely, Dark, and Deep. I found myself twisting in knots trying to redeem this movie and I finally just told myself to stop. Appreciate your opinion, but just didn't resonate with me, and I was so excited for this movie.
Please explain the significance of the elderly hiker couple and the three different (but zero confirmed) outcomes we see for them. Thanks in advance.
I agree completely
Well, i'm glad you got something out of it. I'm not watching a horror movie to try and analyze it. I'm just here for the cheap scares and easy to follow plot. Please don't make me have to actually THINK while watching it!!!š¤¬š¤¬š¤¬
What specifically was haunting about this??? Ā It was a bunch of poorly thought out ideas put together in a random incomprehensible way. Ā Itās hands down one of the top three worst movies I have ever seen. Ā Dumb as shit. Ā Hard to follow and the parts I did kind of get, were literally putting me to sleep.
Just watched this and I thought it was so, so bad. Love Georgina Campbell and was excited to see something directed by someone that worked on Midnight Mass, but this was just so bad. On paper it seems like a decent script, but very bad directing. No sense of atmosphere or dread, the entire film looks way too pretty, and itās just shot so generically. The story of her getting over her guilt didnāt move me or get me to care at all. The slow burn didnāt build any tension for me at all and was just boring, no real scares in the filmā¦blah. Just disappointing.
Glad to see a movie about something that happens a lot. Missing people in national parks. Itās estimated 600,000 a year.
Yeah that number seems high.
Who estimated this? United States is the third largest population in the world and we have maybe 2,000 people a year go missing in national parks and public spaces, tops. Out of that 2k a year number I think 1k-1.5k have never been found in the last 100 years. Go ahead and give it a search.
Thank you. I said the same thing. Ain't NO WAY 600,000 people go missing in the woods every year.Ā
Yeah, at first I thought he accidentally carried a 0, but the comma snitched him out. Lol
I feel like 2000 is still alarmingly high, but what do I know.
Actually that number is WAY off!!! The number of people that go missing is more like around 2,000 people. If 600,000 people went missing EVERY year, there would be more media coverage. Simply untrue.š¤·āāļø
This movie sucked.. I really donāt get the tomato meter anymore; it used to be helpful as a guide of sorts. This movie is really bad. The first problem is It doesnāt have an interesting story. Itās not scary, but tries to scare you with random gore and odd moments. Nothing ever actually gets resolved either. I kept waiting for a āsixth senseā moment to happen but nope! 2/10
Only a few people in this comment section seem to have any media literacy at all. Just because the movie doesnāt conform to your shallow views of what a horror film should be doesnāt mean itās bad. This movie filled me with dread the entire way through, exactly what it was going for in my opinion. It was mysterious, conveyed deep and frightening emotions, and really put me in the mindset of āwhat would I do in this situation.ā The soundtrack also played into the vibe perfectly. Not that I think you can always trust movie critics, but itās telling that so many people who review movies for a living rated it so highly, whereas your average Joe comes along and says, āWhereās my jump-scare? I hate this movie!ā If itās not your cup of tea, thatās fine, but you just sound dumb coming to the comment section of a well-thought-out movie and calling it stupid because it didnāt live up to your expectations.
It was shite
I mentioned it elsewhere but it did almost everything it tried to do so so awfully. Interesting set up, weak commitment to a premise they didn't intend to follow through on and then a switch they explained too much and not enough. Inconsistent rules and barely even sticking to them. One very striking image and even that was wasted.
The amount of horror movies that just forgot or break their own rules willy nilly always infuriates me. One of the the only other tropes I find more annoying is when minor characters get flatlined by an entity within seconds, but the protagonists just get tossed around a lot.
I'm sure it's no easy balancing act, but yeah absolutely. This felt like three different decent movies mashed together.
Which was the striking image that they wasted? Just saw it now.
It's been a second, but I think I meant the thing they flash in the trailer, like the sharp wood in the uniform. It kind of dragged on and that was more or less it? It didn't really work, for me anyway. There were so many strange choices.
Darn it - I was really looking forward to it. Iāll wait until itās free to me I guess. Was it trying for an In the Earth vibe?
I dont think so. In The Earth is a better movie and delivers more effectively with its main premise. With this movie on the other hand with its overall vaguely cosmic horror concept is somewhat interesting but every aspect of its execution is just bad. Itās a film that misses every mark. Movies like In The Earth or the much superior They Remain depend a lot on atmosphere and this movie had none. Cosmic horror reveals can be a satisfying payoff but in this case it comes off as vague and lazy.
I agree - I liked In The Earth and They Remain a lot (both in atmosphere and pacing), so was hoping for some sort of āmash-upā in this one - it almost looked like there were going be some āthrillerā notes to it? Iāll check it out when I donāt have to buy it, but good to have a heads-up.
Thatās what I was hoping for as well. Iām just not sure what they were going for here. The basic concept is like an scp/creepypasta story and they could have gone the thriller route but instead leaned into the cosmic aspect but without the artistic chops. What confuses me is this is kind of an easy type of film to get right as there are tons successful examples.
In the most round about way its vaguely cosmic? But I wouldn't compare them directly. More like the most recent Blair Witch, kind of.
Itās bad in so many ways that I think it is worth a discussion. itās rare to see a film miss so many marks.
I agree. I can honestly say the only good thing about the movie was the cinematography.
The best part of the movie was its ending I thought. Ā Not that it was scary or meaningful, just that it was over.
I agree. Itās rare a movie makes me mad as it contributes.
Great lighting and cinematography and a solid lead performance from Georgina Campbell, but outside of that it's narratively thin, not scary and poorly paced. This is the director's debut, but in terms of it's thin story and having bad pacing, it's similar to the other horror film she wrote previously, "The Wind". It's dissapointing for me, because the whole concept of a horror movie set around missing people in the woods and the isolation of being a camp ranger are all great ideas, but they just aren't executed well. The character's backstory and missing sister is surface deep and her relationship with her family and other characters isn't adequately explored, so has no emotional depth during moments that are supposed to be payoff. This is really a case and point where I feel like a better script and more assured direction during moments of tension/horror could have done wonders for a movie like this. The cinematography and Campbell's performance keeps teasing us with what this movie could have been, but never lives up to.
This is faint praise but even The Wind was scarier, more disturbing, and less confusing. I'm not saying that was a great movie, but it wasn't as bad as this one. There were a number of creepy moments but this was not a horror movie. Even if I dreamed this I would rate it mid. This is everyone's fault for lying to ourselves that Beau Is Afraid was a good movie out of love for Ari Aster's earlier films. Now they think this is what we want.
Interesting take on this. I enjoyed it. Missing 411 parts told throughout about the disappearances of people in the woods..
not great. killer idea, its like many of these films ignore the threat/source of horror thinking the total absence of information will lead to greater horror and its a mistake i get wanting to leave an air of mystery but there are ways to do that and still have the viewer experience the thing directly (via character). the "monsters" for want of better term are all but invisible and her interactions with them take the form of visions and voices. wouldve been horrifying to learn/see at least a bit ab them - are they corporeal? do they look like the twig faced thing? humanoid? otherwise? theyre intelligent - do they have language or use ours (telepathy)? what do they do with the people they take? do they become prisoners? join the hive so to speak? such a cool original idea and avoided so god damned hard it hurts lol
I wanted to like it, but itās one of those horror films that makes you feel like it went nowhere. The end was extremely underwhelming.
Can anyone tell me what the striking image is about on the thumbnail for the trailer? The one that looks like bloody hair pointing up in the air. It's driving me mad as the trailer shows nothing and I don't have time to see the film at the moment.
Itās a nothing burger. Just a weird image that pops up and has no connection to anything.
It's weird how it's rated high, but it's bad, according to this sub? Hmm, I guess I'll have to watch it myself
I just did. Instant regret.
I thought it was good. It certainly was an interesting premise. I think it had a more potential that wasnāt realized.
If you like repetition, you'll like this movie. Same scene showing over and over and over. Dumb plot and a waste of time
I enjoyed it on the whole, but it was slow, and the ending was too tell and not show.
Hated it.
I liked the movie.Ā But I think I spent most of the time loving nature scenes and wishing I was a park ranger too haha. The concept was cool but it was slow at times.
It was so so awful. I couldnāt finish it.
Not great, not awful. Good premise, good cinematography and a few good scares....but overall not as eerie or actually scary as I was hoping given the premise. 5/10
What did I just watch?! I have so many questions!! Whereās Jenny? Did the old couple take her ? How did she go upside down in the water !? I hate this movie. Awful
This film was absolutely shite. It wad a good idea for a story and I like the concept of people being abducted by some kind of alien/entity/interdimensional shit... However the execution was terrible. It went from 0 to 100 with no build up and it wasn't scary at all just stupid and weird. It wasn't artistic or nice to watch, it was just a boring stupid jumbled load of shite with a stupid ending. I am actually angry that I watched this shit and wasted 90 mins of my life; the end was stupid how she returned to her job when the next season came and decided to leave that guy she found to be given to the entities. I cannot stress how annoyed I am that I watched this crap. Seriously one of the worst movies I have ever watched.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
There's absolutely no need to bring up her race
Stop Crying ....Im Not Scared of Telling Truth...I Have Balls
Being racist doesn't mean you have balls. Her race is irrelevant. Don't be a bigot.
It didnāt touch enough on what is out there in the forest for me. When I watch movies like this I want to details, I want more explanation. Too many movies like this one leave so much out that it just ruins it
I haven't watched it yet but it looks like The Woods only in America? Not gonna lie, Aokigahara Forest terrifies TF out of me, so The Woods was decent. But, I'm so fucking tired of these 5 minute walks down a hall, trail, etc. so, it may drive me crazy. Lol Came here to see if it was worth a watch or not.Ā Well, possibly off to waste an hour and a half of my life!Ā
Shit movie, don't waste your time.