My Review Of “Monsters In The Woods” 2012

J. Horton’s micro-budget horror, “Monsters In The Woods”, is a celebration of b-movie flicks from the past. The film stars  Glenn Plummer, Lee Perkins, Linda Bella, Edward Hendershott, Claudia Perea, Blaine Cade, Gladys Otero, Ashton Blanchard, Paul Misko, Richard Raad, Ernest Dancyand Hilliary Barbour.  ‘Monster In The Woods” is a mixed bag of gimmicks and tricks that comes from a vision of awesome potential, but unfortunately falls short of even mediocre levels.

The story has strong possibility, with a film crew deep in the woods, suddenly under attack by actual monsters. It should have been a fun, entertaining, low budget, horror comedy. What happens is that so many ideas and elements are thrown together in a make-shift concept that falls apart mostly due to poor execution. The cast are not convincible- I am not even sure the actors really got what the director was going for with “Monsters In The Woods”. The different concepts do more to crowd the film with indirection and distraction than to create a strong single, concise story arc.

The special effects used in “Monsters In The Woods” are by far some of the weakest. Even with cheap effects on a low budget, execution is crucial to pulling off the practical, and desired vision of he story. In the film things sort of look too dime store constume-y, than professional effects. There is nudity and screams galore. Blood spatters and monsters rage. However it isn’t powerful enough to cover or over-shadow all the flaws this film gives us. Most notable a poor sound quality. Big no-no, and movie killer for even the best of stories with a decent budgets.

Overall, “Monsters In The Woods” teases an entertaining, homage to b-movie madness but fails to deliver. I followed the film’s production and looked forward to finally seeing the finished product. Needless to say-I am disappointed. There is just too much that fails in this one for me to like the movie. Once again it proves the adage-“less is more”when it comes to concepts-put the more into special effects and sound. See the film if you just want to kill some time out of idle curiosity-but just be aware that it isn’t J. Horton’s finest work.