Main cast: Hannah Kasulka (Jill), Craig Arnold (Derek), Sasha Clements (Alison), Corbin Bleu (Philip), Alexander De Jordy (Matty), Humberly González (Bree), Kyle Mac (Tod), and Ian Matthews (John)
Director: Jordan Barker
Ah, the age-old horror tradition: when a group of “teenagers”, played by thirty-somethings who’ve clearly seen a mortgage or two, decide that instead of hitting the beach or literally anywhere with cellular reception, they’re going to vacation in a snowy patch of nowhere that looks like it was designed by Mother Nature during a depressive episode.
Welcome to Witches in the Woods, where the only things scarier than the alleged witch are the characters’ collective IQ.
This Canadian horror-thriller lumbers along the well-trodden path of “Let’s all cram into a car and drive into oblivion!” but ups the ante by making the trip deeply traumatic before the haunting even begins.
Our designated Final Girl, Jill — because of course there’s a Final Girl — is the type of person who thinks a group therapy session on wheels is the cure for post-traumatic stress. Her genius plan is to drag her fragile friend Alison, still reeling from a sexual assault, into a moving pressure cooker of unresolved tension, frat-boy guilt, and hormonal side-eye. Honestly, this woman makes the Blair Witch look like Florence Nightingale.
Jill’s other inspired decision: pack the car with (1) her boyfriend, whose football team may or may not have been involved in said assault, (2) the side dish she’s cheating on said boyfriend with, and (3) several walking meat popsicles who exist solely to yell, pout, and eventually die ignobly.
Everyone hates everyone else from the start, which saves the viewer time because we don’t need to pretend to root for anyone.
The characters are so absurdly, gloriously dumb that the film becomes a sort of natural selection comedy. They drive into a snowstorm with no clue how to drive in snow, get stuck, and then — despite being surrounded by trees and enough kindling to build Noah’s Ark — they shiver dramatically like Victorian orphans waiting to die. Watching them flail around is like watching a group project where everyone forgot the project and also how to breathe.
There might be a witch? Maybe? Alison starts acting weird, but honestly, it’s hard to tell whether she’s possessed or just fed up with everyone else’s nonsense. The rest of the group is too busy reenacting Lord of the Flies in Canada to notice.
In the end, Witches in the Woods delivers neither witches nor meaningful woods. It does, however, offer an impressive body count made entirely possible by stunningly poor decisions and the kind of interpersonal dynamics that would make Jerry Springer rise from the grave just to throw a chair.
Recommended if you enjoy shouting “OH COME ON!” at your screen while watching insufferable people get what’s coming to them via snow and hubris. For everyone else, it’s a lesson in wilderness survival: namely, don’t go into it with people you wouldn’t trust with a grocery list.
