Plot Details: This opinion reveals minor details about the movie's plot.

At first glance, director Lionel Delplanque’s French slasher/giallo hybrid Deep in the Woods (aka Promenons-nous dans les bois) seems like a film I’d be prone to gushing over. It’s a giallo filled with stylish visual imagery, draws its inspiration from directors such as Argento, Bava, Michele Soavi, Hitchcock, and even David Lynch, and features a fair amount of violence, atmosphere, and sexual tension. Generally speaking, I should be championing this film to anyone who listens…

Unfortunately for director Delplanque, I’m not. For while Deep in the Woods seems to have all the earmarkings of the classic Italian giallo film re-envisioned by the French, it also seems to be the film for which the phrase ‘tragically flawed’ was invented. The individual parts may well be intriguing, but the whole of the film just never comes together in the way it should—making the end result a largely unsatisfying viewing experience, particularly when one considers what might have been.

Five actors (Clotilde Courau, Clement Sibony, Vincent Lecoeur, Alexia Stresi, and Maud Buquet) are hired to perform a modern art interpretation of Little Red Riding Hood. Said performance will take place for an audience of two—crippled millionaire Axel Fersen (Francois Berleand) and his autistic grandson Nicolas (Thibault Truffert)—at an isolated mansion in a secluded forest where a savage rapist has been preying on young women. Things take a turn for the worse when someone dons the frightening wolf costume used in the play and begins slaughtering everyone in the mansion.

To catalogue all the diverse influences that color Deep in the Woods (yet never manage to actually save the film) would take up the rest of this review. So, let’s just hit the most obvious (and most important) of the bunch instead.

The most obvious inspiration for Deep in the Woods are the lurid Italian gialli of the 1970s. These distinctly Italian thrillers are noteworthy for being the cinematic antecedent to the slasher film, and for their highly-stylized presentation. The gialli were often convoluted affairs in terms of plot—filled with byzantine stories, strange psychosexual tension, and elaborate murder set-pieces. Dario Argento and Mario Bava are widely regarded amongst the masters of the form—Argento for several films (most notably Deep Red and Tenebre) and Bava for Blood and Black Lace.

Deep in the Woods apes the giallo style effectively, for the most part. Delplanque’s direction is certainly hyper-stylized—borrowing the penchant for forced perspective shots and lurid color schemes that Argento and Bava are so well known for. The plot is certainly labyrinthine in its construction, often mirroring the dreamlike narrative structure that Euro-horror is so infamous for—people wind up in weird places and situations in this film with no explanation ever offered…the viewer is simply expected to go with it. The psychosexual tension is there as too—the five actors all have a great deal of sexual energy between them, and Fersen makes a half-hearted pass at Vincent Lecour’s character in the early going.

The idea of actors being slaughtered by a madman in a costume owes back to Michele Soavi’s brilliant 1987 directorial debut Stagefright (aka Deliria).

Delplanque and crew pay further homage to Argento through the use of a strange child character who bears witness to numerous savage murders (which was one of the driving elements in Deep Red) and through the use of a child’s nursery rhyme as a plot device (which would be done again in Argento’s Sleepless aka Nonhosonno) and the use of fairy tales (which was used in Suspiria).

Finally, there are several nods to the work of Hitchcock as well (which seems only fitting, since Hitchcock has certainly had a profound influence on Argento’s career). The most notable stuff is homage to Psycho, including taxidermy, a peeping tom scene, and a murder near the shower.

The problem with Deep in the Woods isn’t that it draws inspiration from all of these sources—it’s that it takes the inspiration and does nothing with it. In many ways, this film is a soulless experience—it’s pretty, it has a lot going on, but it’s all surface. Unfortunately, the film is never able to carry the weight of its own pretensions—making the end result something akin to a hollowed out Easter egg….it’s all pretty on the outside, but there’s nothing more to it. Even its best murder sequence (involving battery acid and an impalement) seems almost perfunctory in its presentation. Delplanque may know how to craft a giallo in a paint by the numbers sense, but he’s failed to capture the heart and spirit of these films.

At any rate, it’s tough to give a star rating to a film like Deep in the Woods. Yes, it does look really good, and it borrows conventions from some of my favorite films. However, it never does justice to the material, and left me feeling more disappointed at what might have been than anything. It’s not an awful movie by any stretch, but it never strives to be anything more than a pastiche of some of the best horror cinema of the past three decades. And for that, it gets two stars from me.


Recommended: No

Viewing Format: DVD
Video Occasion: Good for a Rainy Day