Haunted Forest (Lionsgate)
Picture:
C Sound: C+ Extras: C- Film: C-
Nothing
like taking a trip to national forests/parks and getting back to nature, but of
course in tired Horror films, you are not alone and someone or something is out
there to kill you. The latest variant is
writer/production designer/director Mauro Borrelli’s Haunted Forest (2006) which unlike most straight-to-DVD projects
beings with some promise before allowing itself to disintegrate into stupid
clichés and be just another lame imitator.
At first,
we don’t know if the visitor/friends are being hunted or what, but as son as
yet another dirty girl with long black hair and a t-shirt down to her knees
turns up, you know it is all over. It
makes you wonder if people are purposely going out of their way to make bad
product and destroy anything
good. If Borrelli had remained serious
with the material, this could have been a pleasant surprise. Instead, some will be so ticked that they
might wear a long white t-shirt, bad make-up and a four-foot weave, then try to
find the producers and annoy them for making junk.
The
anamorphically enhanced 1.78 X 1 image is soft throughout with little picture
consistency, but at least the color is not gutted like most projects in this
genre. The Dolby Digital 5.1 and 2.0
mixes reveal the sonic limits of the original recording and are decent at
best. Trailers are the only extra on
this basic release.
- Nicholas Sheffo
