Something Walks in the Woods (2023) Movie Review - Oh God, This One Is Bad
Welcome back to Knockout Horror, it’s time for more Horror on Tubi as today we will be reviewing Found Footage Ghost story Something Walks in the Woods. For those of you who don’t know; which is, likely, most of you. For the month of June, I will be reviewing as much of Tubi’s low budget horror crap as I can manage.
I’ll first make it clear that Tubi are not dumb enough to sponsor me to do this. My site is tiny, that would be ridiculous. I just feel like it is a great resource for horror fans. They have some fantastic horror movies and they are all free. They also have an enormous amount of absolute shit. It is that shit that we are interested in. Get your elbow high gloves on because if it is low budget and has an awful cover image, we are watching and reviewing it.
A Really Bad Start!
Well this one hasn’t started well. At least with Reset, Chest and Bed Rest we had, somewhat, decent titles. Something Walks in the Woods is not afforded that same privilege. What a terrible name for a movie. Lots of things walk in the woods. They tend to be densely populated, ecologically rich, places. It doesn’t exactly inspire a sense of wonderment or intrigue, does it?
Still, we shouldn’t judge a book by its cover. Or, in this case, by its title. For all we know, Something Walks in the Woods could be the next big thing in Found Footage horror. That crappy title might be hiding a powerful, low budget, film making marvel. Hell, this might be the movie that restores people’s faith in the much maligned mockumentary genre. Spoiler alert: It’s not! This movie blows out of every hole.
The story follows a documentary maker investigating a sighting of a mysterious spirit. A viral video appears to show something walking across the tree line of a forest. According to the person who filmed it, this happens daily. Wanting to get to the bottom of the story, as well as hoping to cash in a bit. Bill Howard (a self insert, of course) gets permission to spend a night on the land to find out what is going on.
An Extremely Slow Start
The premise here is fairly simple and, to be honest, rather timely. A spooky video goes viral and a dude that makes documentaries wants to capitalise. With YouTube and TikTok dominating the social media video space, this is something that happens all the time. Hell, you can’t even get brutally murdered anymore without some Zoomer hitting the griddy over your blood stained murder site. Our protagonist, Bill, doesn’t want to do the backpack kid dance on the treeline, though. He wants to load up his backpack with camping supplies and spend a night in the woods.
Instead of watching Bill spend time in the spooky woods, however. We watch him researching the history of the area as he updates us on his application progress. What made Billy think this would make for good horror viewing? I mean, it is horrifying I suppose.. Horrifyingly boring! It takes over 30 minutes for him to actually start setting up his tent and, in that time, virtually nothing of note happens.
Oh yes, I know what would make for great horror content.. Bureaucracy… Excellent! It might sound like I am being unfair but he subjects us to a 6 minute library scene. 4 minutes of which are him having a phone call. Couldn’t he have filled this time with more videos of the spirit? Some stealthy walks across the treeline at night time? A video of him falling down the stairs? Something that would have provoked some interest, at least.
It Doesn’t Get Any Better From There
Unfortunately, being in the woods doesn’t actually offer much hope. For some reason, Bill isn’t camping at the treeline where the spirit has been taking its daily sabbaticals. Oh no, that would make sense. Bill is camping a significant distance away. I’ve watched the fantastic Canadian YouTuber Steve Wallis camp closer to roads and treelines when he is stealth camping. Bill has permission to be here but still wants to be deep in the woods.
He sets up his tent, shows us his equipment and remains blissfully unaware of the digital interference taking place on his camera. Something that is supposed to hint to the viewer of strange things being afoot. This interference will occur throughout, never really going anywhere and never being anything other than annoying.
Something Yawns in the Woods
Day turns to night and the camping continues. Some spooky stuff happens, the most severe of which involves Bill cutting his hand. Something that he, most likely, managed to do while filming. Realised was the most interesting thing that had happened so far and decided to include it in the final cut as a plot point. When all is said and done, there is a big reveal. Only, it isn’t a big reveal. It’s a tiny, deflating, underwhelming and disappointing reveal.
It is reminiscent of the ending of a Dark Souls video game. Unremarkable and definitely not worth the effort. Only, with Dark Souls you enjoy the ride. With Something Walks in the Woods, you really don’t. You hate the ride. You spend the entire time kicking the front seat and yelling “are we there yet?”. This is a movie devoid of scares, intrigue, and reasons to watch. It seems far fetched to say that literally nothing happens but literally nothing happens. Nothing at all.
Written, Directed by and Starring
I suppose props have to go out to William Howard III for the effort he put in. He, basically did everything here. He produced the movie, scripted it, directed it and starred in it. I have a sneaking suspicion he was probably responsible for providing the coffee, as well. He does an okay job with the acting role. His line delivery can feel a little stilted at times. The movie is probably retro scripted which will contribute to that. As a writer and director, however, he leaves a fair bit to be desired.
The story here really lacks substance. There are virtually no moments of intrigue. There are no scares. He does nothing with the spooky location and the shots are boring and empty. Lighting and camera set up are big problems here, much like they were in Chest. For much of the movie, it is virtually impossible to see what is going on. It looks like we are watching a tent located in the middle of a void. Given the theme, this might be the intention but still. It robs the movie of suspense. Daytime shots are, often, massively over exposed with the sun mercilessly assaulting the camera lens.
Final Thoughts and Score
Much like Chest. This is another one of those horror movies that gives Found Footage a bad name. For every Lake Mungo or Noroi: The Curse, there are ten movies like this. Produced by a film-maker who is stretching himself too thin and featuring a poorly formulated story with no scares at all. It’s fine to produce horror with a micro budget. Found Footage can be a brilliant approach to movie making but you need an idea. You need a solid story and you need a reason for people to invest. Whether that is scares or character development. It doesn’t matter.
Something Walks in the Woods has none of these things. It is a tiresome and boring movie that takes enormous liberties with the viewer’s time. There are a lot of these “one person show” movies out there. We have reviewed a number of them. Some of which are very watchable, Leaving D.C is a great example. This, however, is one of the bad ones. A solid skip and another example of the perils of watching low budget Tubi horror.
