Highly Overrated But Still Good

A waste of 90 minutes of my life

At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

Do you want to know how many times the characters in Spirit in the Woods say "I think I saw something", only to pan the camera over and reveal nothing except for trees and... more nothing? Just nothing. A lot of nothing. That's a rhetorical question, because I won't go back and lose another hour of my life counting. It's an adequate summary of this... I don't know what you would call this, actually. I'd like to say "movie", but things tend to happen in movies. Even if they're boring, you can walk out discussing something about it. What did or didn't work for you. Nothing - and I mean nothing - happens in this... er, sequence of moving images. So the lowdown here is that Anthony Daniel asked himself, "Remember The Blair Witch Project? What if I did a movie like that, but like, without the tension or anything?" Then he went to Kickstarter, told people he had a good idea for a horror movie, and some of those poor, misguided people gave him money they like, actually worked and stuff for, and then he took that money, and turned it into an hour of footage of a bunch of people walking in the woods. It's an often heard criticism that nothing happened in The Blair Witch Project. It was build up to a non-ending. The same argument is often made for other found-footage flicks, such as Paranormal Activity. People talk for an hour or so, occasionally something weird happens, and then the climax. Roll credits. The difference between those movies and Spirit in the Woods is the burn. Whether they worked for you or not, these movies spent the duration of their runtime gradually turning up the tension. Whether Blair Witch affected you or not, you could sense emotion in effect on the camera. The characters begin to panic, they argue, they despair. In Paranormal Activity, they gradually become more accepting that there is something happening in their house, and how they emotionally deal with it. In Spirit in the Woods, they talk. Much like you and your friends talk. Generally about nothing. That's it. One character may, at times, whine that they want to go home, but that's it. It was a bold choice to just make a movie devoid of energy or tension of any sort. I mentioned the characters often saying "I think I saw something", yes? That's what we get, in place of slowly building dread, or even cheap jump scares. Not once, not twice. Repeatedly. The movie telling us something MAY be there, but it's not. I even looked hard, just to see if maybe something was hidden on screen. During it's final fifteen or so minutes, when something FINALLY happens it's out of nowhere, and earned for no other reason than the movie is almost over and the money is almost out, and we still don't see anything. The camera freezes, or the footage gets shoddy, muddling our view. Imagination, in a horror movie, can be very effective. Minimalism works because the human mind will fill in the blanks, often more effectively than you could by telling them the answer. It worked in a movie like Blair Witch because we knew damn well that whatever was off screen when they screamed "What the f*** is that?!" was sure as hell there. The movie provided just enough along the way for our mind to fill in the rest. Spirit in the Woods gives us a few rambling ideas of what it's mythology could have been after the fact, and nothing along the way to make us afraid of what may be around the corner.Like The Blair Witch Project, Spirit in the Woods is, I gather, based on some existing folklore and ghost stories. Do yourself a favor, and don't watch this movie. If you want to watch this movie, go watch The Blair Witch Project instead. It's literally the same thing, but with pacing and tension and all those things that make a movie interesting. If you STILL want to go watch Spirit in the Woods, then do me a favor, and keep a running tally of how many times they say "I thought I just saw something", because I'm honestly curious how many times they blatantly admitted there was nothing on screen.

This is a pretty amazing pointless movie, like the others reviewers stated, that's nothing going on for most of the time, and when it's happening something, it's like it wasn't, since it's so incredibly boring.The acting, the script, the woods, they're beyond terrible, and the story is completely uninteresting or scary at all. There isn't any moment in the movie that scares you or make you chill.They're supposed to be deep in the woods, but for at least for a couple of times, you can clearly listen the cars passing by in a road very close.If you wan't a good night sleep, you shouldn't hesitate on watching this, or if you're still afraid to fall asleep because of Freddy Kruger, then this is the cure, because you will sleep safe and sound in the woods for sure.It couldn't be more static even if it was broadcast by radio.So, stay away from the nap! Best regards

Let me preface this by saying I created an account on IMDb for the sole purpose of reviewing this movie. I was so angry after finishing it, that I immediately popped over to this IMDb page just so I could get some validation and see that other viewers shared the same opinion that I did about this movie. And then I saw the 6.2 rating... So am I to assume that the entire cast and crew created IMDb accounts so they could give this piece of tripe a 10? Because really, there's no other explanation for this movie getting a 6.2. Really. I really think this is one of the worst movies I've ever seen. It was like watching a project for a high school drama class where a group had to write their own skit and film it, but none of the students were really into it and just wanted to slap something together to get a passing grade. As a previous reviewer stated, pretty much the entire first hour of the movie is comprised of 5 obnoxious college students wandering around the woods, complaining about one thing or another. Literally nothing else happens for that first hour. They wander around and whine random, poorly acted ad-libbed lines that don't have any meaning to the "plot". I can't remember the last time I was so bored watching a movie. Then we see some random figure in the woods, film gets grainy, some random blood is thrown in there, and then...we're done. Some random narrative and credits role. What did I just watch? Is this a joke? Are these real actors? Is this real life? WHO IS QUICKY VICKI? So I guess I'll conclude my first and last IMDb review by saying, please skip this piece of garbage. This poor man's Blair Witch Project knockoff is not worth your time.

Objectively speaking, this movie has terrible acting, the first 55 minutes is wandering the woods, rambling, where nothing happens, the camera pans around and you think you might see something, which can be kind of cool, but so deep into the movie and nothing has happened is a stretch to even call it a movie... then when anything does happen, you see a white faced wraith like face, and that is IT. That's it. That's all you get... some shook up guys, a guy with blood on his hands and shirt, blurry camera-work, a long narrative, and that is it. I am astonished how the producer even considered funding this movie. It's devoid of redeeming qualities, it blows my freaking' mind. The producer actually told me he funded it just to make an easy return to fund his own projects.... Yes, that's the truth, any movie no matter how bad will make money, because you can make a very formulaic horror film for so little these days and get some kind of return, can't argue with you there, but it is dragging down the genre big time when all one is doing it for is the money.