Lucky McKee’s second major film was stuck in post-production limbo for a number of years. Many critics insinuate that the impetus for the delay may well have been due to M. Night Shyamalan having nodded in the right direction after being forced to change the title of what is now known as The Village from its original namesake, The Woods. However, in lieu of McKee’s phenomenal 2002 debut, May–and especially when set alongside the filmmaker’s contribution to the Masters of Horror, “Sick Girl”–one gets the stunning impression that Hollywood conspiracy is anything but. Instead, the viewer is unfortunately left to reconcile the possibility that the director’s charter film was perhaps a lucky (sorry for the pun) roll of the freshman dice as The Woods suggests that concern for Box Office returns may well have been the real motive for the feature’s belated premier.
While growing up in a matriarchy-led household where her mother, Alice (Emma Campbell), is too busy Keeping Up with the Jones to find the patience or the time to raise a child, Heather Fasulo (Agnes Bruckner) resorts to cynicism as an emotional guard and arson in order to garner attention. As a consequence, Heather is sent to Falburn, a boarding school for girls which doubles as a tyrannical military academy led by Miss Traverse (Patricia Clarkson). However, Heather suspects that things might well be amiss when it is rumored that a century prior a coven of witches took control of the school.
There are two manners in which to summarize McKee’s The Woods. The first and simplest is that it is a remake of Dario Argento’s Suspiria set in 1965. The other is to state that the work is a conglomeration of Peter Weir’s Dead Poet’s Society, John Llewellyn Moxey’s The City of the Dead, (ironically) Shyamalan’s The Village, and Robert Rodriguez’s The Faculty. However, the problem with either synopsis is that such would seem to imply that The Woods may contain some of the more positive elements of these otherwise notable affairs.
I have no peeves with a film whose agenda is pure, unadulterated fun. Such hopeful guilty pleasures never proffer the idea that they are esteeming to achieve anything of socially redeemable value. However, my grievances begin manifesting themselves when a movie attempts to convince its viewer that it is serving a five-course meal when, in fact, we are only getting an appetizer and, more often than not, a stale one at that. In short, I’m content with celluloid fluff if is it labeled thusly, however, if you attempt to give me Austin Powers while claiming it is The Godfather . . . .
Granted, there is a polarization between good and evil, a fair degree of parallelism and intertexual referencing which occurs during the film (i.e. Heather is a pyromaniac and her school nemesis, Samantha Wise (Rachel Nichols), dubs her “fire crotch” due to her prospecting that, in Robert Altman’s terms, “the carpet matches the curtains”), as we are issued the archetypal Hawthornian subconscious in the form of a dark, ominous wooded wilderness which envelopes the campus. And, yes, as the plot develops, Heather ultimately finds herself attempting to absolve the Sins of the Father (or in this case, the Sister) so that innocent girls who had no hand in the atrocities of decades prior might retain the right to their ever-loving souls. However, in the end, the audience is left asking “To what ends?” or more exactingly, “What’s the damn point?”
Amid great photography by John Leonetti and the fairly intriguing dynamics between Samantha, Heather, and Traverse, the core of The Woods is nonetheless revealed to be hollow despite the fact that McKee’s career sets the stage for him to assume the role of horror’s reigning feminist after John Carpenter. Yet, despite the admirable gender usurpation and affirmation witnessed in May, and the almost exclusively all-girl cast of The Woods, the director deadpans after going to great efforts to establish a very competent palette before painting stick figures.
In the end, Lucky McKee’s The Woods serves as a possible signpost for a potentially great talent who just happened to coincidentally put the pieces in the proper order once upon a time. Nevertheless, the director’s tardy effort displays that he is aware of what comprises a great film yet, for whatever unspoken reasons, is unable to bring everything together by the end of the day. Thus, all we are able to do is attempt to rekindle the awe experienced after having first watched May while hoping that The Woods is merely a case of director’s block.
-Egregious Gurnow
- Interview with J.R. Bookwalter - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Andrew J. Rausch - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Rick Popko and Dan West - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Director Stevan Mena (Malevolence) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Screenwriter Jeffery Reddick (Day of the Dead 2007) - January 22, 2015
- Teleconference interview with Mick Garris (Masters of Horror) - January 22, 2015
- A Day at the Morgue with Corri English (Unrest) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Writer/Director Nacho Cerda (The Abandoned, Aftermath) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Actress Thora Birch (Dark Corners, The Hole, American Beauty) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Actor Jason Behr, Plus Skinwalkers Press Coverage - January 22, 2015
