Deep in the Woods (2000)

Wonderful Movie

Just what I expected

It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

Stylish, confusing, full frontal nudity- it's got to be French. A group of teenage performers is hired to perform for a rich mysterious recluse and his son living in a castle in the middle of the woods. Things get stranger and stranger and eventually people start dying in rather violent and original ways. All of the house inhabitants are creepy characters. What is really unique about this movie and makes it worthwhile is how stylish it is. The movie looks great and there are some original shots and camera angles. While there are movies made entirely as an exercise in style, this one is not only stylish but has a story. This is not one of those gross out horror movies with people covered in dry blood and dirt. The nudity was also surprising and nice. While the story is unclear it's not one of those convoluted stories that forces you to give up looking for meaning, here you do want to find out what's going on. Highly recommended for those who are looking for a stylish and different kind of horror movie.

A motley coed quintet of attractive, but untalented young thespians are hired by a flaky, testy, crippled millionaire (a wonderfully loud and flamboyant turn by Francois Berleand) who resides in an opulent castle abode located deep in the remote woods to put on a play for his scarily quiet autistic grandson. A vicious rapist and serial killer with a foul penchant for butchering lovely young lasses has been conducting a brutal campaign of terror in the same sylvan area. Come nightfall many of the actors and actresses start getting bumped off in assorted ghastly ways. Could it be the serial killer or someone else who's behind the gruesome killings? Director Lionel Delplanque carefully establishes a genuinely spooky and unnerving tone in the deliberately paced opening third before cutting loose with a breathtaking series of ferocious murder set pieces. Better yet, Delplanque adroitly blends the brooding midnight-in-the-graveyard gloom-doom atmosphere of 60's Gothic horror features with the more graphic gag-you-with-a-pitchfork gore that proliferated in gritty 70's fright films into a potently creepy and jarring synthesis. The strikingly savage kill scenes make inspired nasty use of a nail gun, a harpoon, scalding acid, and other deadly implements. And since this is a European movie, there's an explicitly pronounced kinky sexual angle to further spice things up: stunningly comely starlet Clotilde Courau doffs all her duds to show us what she's got (plenty and it's all good, man!) some fifteen minutes into the picture, plus we have lesbianism, voyeurism and the fabulously full-figured Maud Buquet takes a welcome steamy shower. While the story quite frankly suffers from severe lapses in logic and admittedly lacks originality, this movie nonetheless still rates as a satisfyingly harsh, serious and properly twisted shockathon that does the trick with considerable style and aplomb to spare.

This "film" should be presented at all levels of film courses especially the scripting ones because it has so many flaws in plot and lacks so many parts of a feature film that one can hardly imagine better tool for explaining what should the story for the movie be like.I don't understand that high ranking it got and some comments about other levels of depths of the story made me laughing loud.After first 20 minutes I was angry at myself because I picked the film for my friends but then I was enjoying every illogical turn of the plot, dialogue and acting of characters under given circumstances just for fun.I have no doubt that had Monty Python been still in action they wouldn't let this one pass unnoticed-one of the most absurd charcters was the policeman/detective -when he first appeared on screen -just what was this? At the end one of my friends added "and now there will be a shot on a raven and finish" and after it happened just that we laughed through the credits maybe trying to forget how dull and boring this french "masterpiece" was.

The movie itself was very confusing... even after viewing the entire thing I nor anybody else understood. In addition the first 30-45 mins of the movie were taken up mostly by sex scenes, one which looked like it might turn into an orgy and another between two girls. All in all it was not a bad movie, but it had a lot of holes in the story and too many sexual subplots.