Review by Ben Bussey
You know – it’s entirely possible that, once True Blood ends, Stephen Moyer has a bright future ahead of him as an actor. The man clearly has skill; you can’t blag playing a leading role on a hugely popular TV show for upwards of five years. Well, okay, maybe you can, but I certainly don’t think that’s been the case for Moyer. The thing that’s great about his performance on that show is, indeed, the thing that’s great about the show overall; the way that time and again it manages to successfully walk the line between the dark, heavy and serious, and the jaw-droppingly outlandish and ridiculous, somehow always getting that tricky tone just right.
This film, whether we call it by its original title The Barrens, or its new British DVD title Devil in the Woods (really, Kaleidoscope?), also attempts to tiptoe along that tightrope… but in this instance, we see what happens when you get your footing completely wrong and plummet into the bogs of laughable, outright absurdity below.
Moyer plays Richard, a suburban dad taking his wife, teenage daughter and young son for a few days camping in the New Jersey Pine Barrens, partly as a family bonding experience, but also to scatter his father’s ashes, as they spent a lot of time there in Richard’s youth. However, the place isn’t quite as Richard remembers, as it’s filled with noisy campers, emo boys with an eye on his daughter – and apparently having had a couple of bear attacks of late. However, it soon becomes clear that Richard really did need to get away from it all, as he seems to be suffering some rather severe anxiety issues to the point that he becomes paranoid and delusional. So when – as is the norm in these situations – bad things start to happen, is it just a case of Richard having a total nervous breakdown, or are they under attack from the monster of local folklore, the Jersey Devil? Or could it be a bit of both…?
As TV to movie transitions go, Moyer’s efforts here are less reminscent of George Clooney in From Dusk Till Dawn than they are of Elizabeth Berkley in Showgirls. And I’ve got to say, to an extent it helps. This is a painfully dull, seen-it-all-before backwoods horror that is lifted out of being utterly mundane and forgettable thanks to an absolutely batshit insane central turn from an actor who (from what I’ve seen of his work at least) has never given a performance quite like this before. The fact that Moyer uses his natural English accent rather than the Southern drawl he puts on for Bill Compton was, for me at least, a factor in what makes his performance so disorientating; it makes him seem that bit more at odds with everything else that’s going on. Still, not unlike some of the other legendary performances of this ilk – say, Nic Cage in The Wicker Man remake, or Mark Wahlberg in The Happening (oh yes, I went there) – I have to wonder whether or not the actor is in on the joke. Moyer’s histrionics reach levels that even Joe Pilato in Day of the Dead would have considered a bit much, and I find it hard to believe that any actor of real skill (which, I must again stress, Moyer most certainly is) doesn’t recognise that they have gone that far out there.
On the other hand, I rather fear the writer-director has approached this whole endeavour with a deadly serious attitude. Really now, Darren Lynn Bousman – enough. We know you love doing your madcap Goth musicals, and there are plenty among us who love you for doing them; is it really necessary for you to alternate between making those, and revisiting tired-out horror tropes such as you do here? Or were you really hoping to condemn yourself to perpetual straight-to-DVD status as soon as you ended your run on the Saw movies? There’s nothing about this that makes me think Bousman was aiming for laughs. My gut feeling is he was trying to get out of Moyer what Kubrick got out of Jack Nicholson – but, as should by now be apparent, he didn’t even manage to get what Kubrick got out of Tom Cruise.
(Yeesh… I’ve referenced From Dusk Till Dawn, Showgirls, The Wicker Man, The Happening, Day of the Dead, The Shining, Eyes Wide Shut. I, too, may be overdoing it somewhat. Although when you think about it, that’s kind of in-keeping with the overall theme of this review. Or something. Look, we have to do something to get some joy out of reviewing bad movies like this, okay?)
Well, what else can I say about The Barrens/Devil in the Woods/that which we call a piece of shit by any other name would smell as bad…? I suppose it isn’t completely without redeeming qualities. The creature FX aren’t that bad, and if you like the frantic, overdone visual style of Bousman’s earlier (clearly higher-budgeted) movies, then there are brief moments of that to be found here. And I suppose some of the supporting players turn in some reasonable performances. But ultimately, this is just a turd, and – as the saying goes – there’s just no polishing it. The best it might get is to become a so-bad-it’s-good favourite, and a funny footnote on the careers of Moyer and Bousman; failing that, it can just sink into the murky depths of obscurity with the rest of the lifeless, brainless, half-baked direct-to-DVD garbage.
Devil in the Woods is released on Region 2 DVD on 2nd March, from Kaleidoscope Entertainment.