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The slasher film has been prostituted and spoofed in equal measure. Kids Go to the
Woods sets out to do both, although it doesn’t simply pillage or critique the very core
principles that define a slasher film, as Wes Craven did with Scream. Instead, the
filmmakers are concerned with the very base ingredients - those trite details that
audiences are so sick of - and they try to make them funny.
Packaged as a pseudo-grindhouse feature, fractured with snippets from home video
archives and faux commercials, writer/director Michael Hall also draws upon the
services of a midnight movie-esque host, a ditzy brunette named Candy who swills
cocktails and interrupts the feature at random moments. This device, which subscribes
more to a Tarantino mythos than the narrative itself, quickly becomes tiresome. It
does, however, serve as an interesting tool that adds quirky texture to the film’s some
what sardonic nature.
Kids Go to the Woods begins by exploiting one of the most fundamental, oft-criticised,
and sexist characteristics of the slasher vehicle. A buxom blonde tries to evade
capture in the ominous woods; she’s being pursued by a masked killer clutching a
massive phallic instrument. As she darts in and out of the trees, her ample breasts
bounce, jiggle, and collide inside her skimpy little dress. Her tits are so big that they
set her off balance, and she quickly crashes to the earth. Only moments later, her
anonymous attacker is upon her, ready to plunge his symbolic erection deep into her
body.
Right from the get go, you can tell what director Hall is trying to achieve and you can
see how he’s done it. He’s delved into his collection of slasher films and raided his
local video store and then he’s sat down in front of the tube, quite possibly with a
bunch of mates and many slabs of beer and jotted down the innumerable traits that
characterise a slasher film. He’s watched Tarantino’s and Rodriguez’s Grindhouse in
between and decided to make a movie with those mates. Good on him!
It’s relatively safe to do a spoof on a given subject or genre because the groundwork
has already been done. All you have to do as a filmmaker is effectively take the piss
out of the material and make the audience laugh. This, alternatively, is where the
challenge lies.
Hall does this in a competent manner. He adorns his classic-style narrative with
formulaic characters, lets them frolic and fuck and then he kills them; all in a log cabin
setting. It’s that simple! There’s your uptight prude, your duo of jocks who relentlessly
bully a weaker more sensitive male, your lesbians; and a pot smoking hippy named
Uncle Bill. There’s even a local whacko who warns the teens of the lurking dangers in
the area. Hall clearly has a penchant for the original Friday the 13th.
Riding on a shoestring budget, Hall has shot this entirely on DV. He also gets mediocre
performances from all of his non-professional actors. The humour is rampant
throughout, but the film is only partially funny. The overall production is simple to say
the least. It looks like Hall has simply borrowed a friend’s cabin and shot the film over
a number of weeks or even months. The gore is very basic, with lashings of the red
stuff, but very few impact wounds. The only time you’re likely to see an actual
stabbing is when he’s built a makeshift dummy and was able to penetrate it with a
blade. Everything is satisfactory given the lack of money he had at his disposal.
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The picture is presented in the 1:85:1 aspect ratio with 16:9 enhancement. For a
low-budget film some of the video material, looks pretty damn good. There's some
grain here and there, but otherwise this is a decent transfer.
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The audio track is only presented in Dolby 2.0 surround. The audio track is very clear
and I had no trouble with it.
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In the DVD department you have a deleted scenes, a blooper reel, exclusive behind
the scenes footage and a handful of trailers. Not a bad range of extras for a low-budget
indie flick.
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Kids Go to the Woods...Kids Get Dead is an amiable first feature. Acting as writer,
director, producer, and editor, Hall puts his audience before everyone else and given
his limited means, has produced a competent first feature. I’d really like to see what
he could do with a bigger budget because his sense of narrative structure and his
ability to tell a story visually is a key indication that he has enough knowledge and
prowess to last in the business for years.
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