Why Spirit In The Woods’ Reviews Are So Negative

The 2014 found footage horror film Spirit in the Woods seeks to emulate The Blair Witch Project, but its reviews have been far from kind. While The Blair Witch Project wasn’t the first found footage horror movie – that honor probably goes to the controversial Cannibal Holocaust – it served to spark a new prominence for the sub-genre that’s never entirely gone away. It probably would’ve abated by now, but then Paranormal Activity came along to re-light the flame for another decade.

Of course, it’s no secret that part of found footage movies’ continued presence is how cheap they are to make, a precedent also established by both Blair Witch and Paranormal Activity. With found footage, the goal is usually to make things as realistic as possible, to simulate the feel of a real documentary. In practice, that often leads to micro budgets, movies with zero or awful special effects, and lots of time spent watching characters stand around and bicker over trivial things.

Sadly, Spirit in the Woods is far closer to the nadir of the found footage sub-genre than it is to its heights. Both fans and critics have blasted it, and for good reason, as it’s far from a success.

Spirit In The Woods’ Reviews Are So Negative – Here’s Why

Partially inspired by Aokigahara, Japan’s legendary “Suicide Forest,” Spirit in the Woods sees a group of college students head to a similar place in Ohio called the Spiritual Woods. Naturally, they get hopelessly lost, and the tales concerning malevolent entities in the woods are true. Sadly, the story is a one-note ripoff of The Blair Witch Project, and doesn’t at all try to be anything but that. The acting is bad, the scares nearly nonexistent, the budget clearly tiny, the lighting and camerawork below par, and so on. It’s no wonder reviews of the film have been so bad.

That said, it’s important to celebrate the fact that the filmmakers, who one presumes had the best of intentions, managed to make it at all. Clearly their resources were limited, and making a feature film is extremely demanding work, as anyone’s who’s ever made one can attest. In that way, it almost seems unfair to pick on a movie like Spirit in the Woods, as while its reviews are deservedly bad, and it’s not a good movie by any measure, the independent filmmaking spirit is always to be commended. For that reason, those involved here still deserve some praise for getting out there and making their movie idea a reality.

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