Monday, March 2, 2009

Timber Falls (2007)

As much as I want to tear this film apart and scream the word cliché over and over at the top of my lungs, I simply can't. This film was actually, well, kind of decent (Did he just say that about Timber Falls? Yes. He did.), and I enjoyed watching it.

Comparable to movies like Wrong Turn, it's the story of a couple of lovers who venture into wooded West Virginia for hiking, camping, and other recreational activities. Unfortunately, a group of psycho-religious hicks lurk in the woods, with a dark history, and murderous tendencies, especially toward "sinners" and "city-folk," which the two lovers are portrayed to be. I found it amusing that these two "city-dwellers" were from Alexandria, Virginia and not from the typical New York. I guess that's one cliche removal right there: Let's make these guys from around D.C. instead of New York.

But our clichés fire up when we get the hot-headed male protagonist, who is in love with the beautiful blonde protagonist, but doesn't want to get married yet while she is dying for a ring. Then the first group of hicks come along and mess with them. Then the girl turns up missing so the hot-headed boyfriend confronts the group of hicks who messed with them originally. Next we get the fake-out on the goodhearted park ranger. Eventually, the boyfriend ends up in the hands of the psychos, finds his girlfriend captive, and they try for a desperate escape.

Despite all of the typical thrills and fake-outs, the acting is not too bad, and the cinematography is well above average in my opinion.

Had they scrapped the cheesy foreshadowing and the all-too-overused West Virginia mountains as the settings, this would've been an above average film.

No comments:

Post a Comment