EVIL IN THE WOODS is an obscure horror comedy that has been known to polarize audiences. Get ready for a surreal journey into the woods, filled with Bigfoot, space aliens and a witch! Writer/director William J. Oates probably wrote the film while listening to The Grateful Dead and under the influence of hypnotic drugs.
A little kid named Billy walks to the public library and picks out a peculiar book called Evil In The Woods. When he gets home he jumps on his bed and starts reading. Here our journey begins as well. The stories in the book are what largely make up the bulk of this film. And everything takes place in the woods. There are two main story arcs and we jump back and fourth until they interact in the third act.
The first story being told is that of a film crew shooting a movie in the woods called Bigfoot Vs. The Alien Space Killers. Alongside, also in the same woods, the second story being told is about a family on a camping trip. The young boy wanders off and is captured by bizarre as fuck psychotic loons that behave like rambunctious children. They take the child to their faux mother, whom happens to be a nasty witch. The worried parents contact the lazy sheriff, but by this time the lad has been diced up and been made into kiddie stew! Now we jump back to the film crew. After checking-in on the crew the movie producer’s car stalls and he is attacked by a real Bigfoot. Meanwhile the film crew is slacking off and a couple are doing drugs. Going back to the witch, we learn that she takes a youth potion and is in a romantic relationship with the sheriff. Skipping back to the film crew storyline, a female cast member is abducted by the witch’s depraved children. Several other crew members start to vanish as well.
Are you ready for this shit to jump into warp drive? The third act is a chaotic jumble of dancing images! We learn, amongst other things, that these wacko children are cannibals! They take their abductee to a broken down house and terrorize her by jumping around like idiots and chomping down on assorted entrails. For some reason they undress her and put her in a fluffy new dress?! The children disembowel a near-dead victim while everyone is screaming and wearing party hats. Well, to be fair, the frightened, hysterical captive is not. As night covers the woods, the witch concocts a spell to turn her children into various types of hairy monsters. The monsters ravage the film crew’s campsite and kill everyone. Our story ends but the book somehow affected Billy and when his parents go inside his room to check on him - he turns into an alien werewolf!!
Now, I was told that this was a shot-on-video movie but frankly I couldn‘t tell. I browsed the web but came up empty handed. If in fact it was an early SOV quickie it has a fairly large cast and a decent production value. Many people complain about the back and forth story mode, and although I admit that at first it can be jarring, as the film progresses you kinda figure some stuff out. This is a mind-fuck movie. I was left disorientated and a little afraid.
There were several moments when my mind drifted off, but I went back and examined just what the fuck was going on. I probably wouldn’t have done this if I weren’t going to write up a review, but I like to keep my facts straight as best I can. The average viewer has probably never seen anything like this. It packs quite a potent punch of bizarre drunkenness. It is not a good movie, but it is damn unique. While watching this film my mind went up and down regarding star rating. After the first 30 minutes I was sure it would get a zero stars. Then something weird happened, and after that something weirder. Soon there was this chaotic mess which I had to process and in the end I gave it a modest 2 stars. If you can track down a copy it is worth a watch but beware, because this shit shreds your grey matter!
2 / 5 STARS
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