Kids Go to the Woods…Kids Get Dead
Starring: Leah Rudick, Andrew Waffenschmidt, Eric Carpenter, Meghan Miller, Kristen Adele, Amanda Rising, Seth Stephens, Kevin Shea, Carly Goodspeed
Written & Directed By: Michael Hall
Grade: B

Kids Go to the Woods…Kids Get Dead is reminiscent of old slashers shown on TV alongside a flirtatious horror hostess. It has many elements of the campy horror film, away in the middle of nowhere. We have the old crazy veteran that gives the kids their fair warning, but is impossible for the characters to take him seriously. They are mostly consumed with sex and having a wild time anyway, which in the case of the typical slasher formula is promised to just kill them faster. One thing unique here is that everything that happens to them comes from a book by the same name that one of the characters is reading.

It’s Casey’s (Rudick) birthday and she goes on a trip, staying in a cabin in the woods with her friends. To everyone’s dismay, Casey also brings her younger brother, Scott (Waffenschmidt), who has a reputation of being a bit nerdy. Casey’s boyfriend, Derrick (Carpenter), sees this weekend as his chance to finally get Casey to have sex with him. Derrick’s friend, Tom (Carpenter), plans on romancing his girlfriend, Heather (Miller), or enough to get lucky anyway. Scott forms a bit of a crush on Casey’s friend, Robin (Adele), who he doesn’t realize is in a relationship with Casey’s other friend, Jill (Rising). Scott spends most of the trip reading his slasher novel and shares every gory detail, scaring Casey and giving her nightmares that night. Before long these nightmares come true. Scott realizes that every detail is identical to their lives and foretells the mayhem that is about to be unleashed upon them by a mysterious man in an oxygen mask, slashing them up one by one.

The performances were somewhat mixed, but luckily this isn’t the type of film that requires great amounts of emotion and depth. Leah Rudick was a bit awkward as the protagonist. She was meant to play an innocent girl, especially in comparison to the sex and alcohol craving young teens she hangs out with. It’s hard to see why she is even friends with any of these people as they don’t seem to have anything in common and often clash. Rudick’s timid performance seemed to be a bit overdone, making it hard to see her as the strong female lead that faced the killer and was able to be the last one standing among all of her friends. There was emphasis on the strong female character and the social importance this displayed, but we really don’t see it here as our female lead seems pretty weak. Andrew Waffenschmidt definitely gave the best performance and although he was the most hated character within the context of the film, he was by far my favorite character in the film. Waffenschmidt brings out enough of this geeky mentality, caught up in his own world, without overdoing it. He displays a realistic character, he’s intelligent and can see the depth in the things he loves that might seem empty, pointless, or nerdy to other people. He’s very true to himself and doesn’t mind standing up for the things he loves, everything from his sister to horror novels. Carly Goodspeed gave one of the better performances as well as the playful and fun horror host. She was extremely cheesy, but obviously intentionally so to be to true to many of the hosts that would have been delivering a few corny lines here and there in between the movie and the commercials. There’s not a ton to say about the rest of the cast as they played very moronic and shallow characters that really didn’t have much to them. None of them added that much to the film, although it was fun to watch them die after all of the stupid things they said and did.

The deaths were a lot of fun here, partially because of the people that were dying, partially because their very deaths were explained to them and the characters were still so oblivious to it all. Scott was the only one who knew and he really knew his death was coming, considering it inevitable as if it had already been set in stone. Of course the bloodshed itself had something to do with the fun quality of the execution of the deaths. The gore is pretty realistic and we do get a decent amount for a low budget horror film. We really don’t know anything about the killer himself. It would have been nice to get a little more insight on him and as Scott was reading a book on his killing rampage and seemed to be so knowledgeable about the deaths exactly as they were going to happen, it seems like he should have had at least a little insight on this killer and why he was doing what he was. By the time he really matches the book up with what is happening to them, he is a bit preoccupied with saving his sister’s life, with little time to even explain what is happening let alone why. It would have been nice to get more background or the killer’s motivations, but even without this we are given a creepy and mysterious killer with a gas mask and oxygen tank, that reminded me of the My Bloody Valentine character. The film also could be connected to Friday The 13th with the environment of the cabin and woods and that the killer is silent, but slashes partying and promiscuous teens one after the other.

Kids Go to the Woods…Kids Get Dead has a pretty interesting structure through the editing and subject changes. It begins with The Midnight Movie Madness Marathon which Kids Go to the Woods…Kids Get Dead is featured in. We are watching this film through these segments that our host, Candy Adams (Goodspeed) takes us in and out of. Like I said they’re cheesy, but they’re a lot of fun and add to the film. In between Candy and the film itself we are given a lot of static transitions between commercials, infomercials, and bits of old family videos. Director, Michael Hall’s mission here was to present the film in the most reminiscent way, showing how he watched similar films when he was younger. There comes in the horror host, but along with that he would have been taping these movie presentations, cutting off the commercials where he could, but we are given bits and pieces of them to make their existence known. Along with this, in order to take these presentations he would have taped over his family’s home videos if necessary. So we go back and forth between the movie itself, a few one liners from Candy Adams, cheesy commercials, and a few family memories. In the end, Kids Go to the Woods…Kids Get Dead is a film that has a lot of fun with itself, bringing back well known and loved slasher essentials, thus making it very easy for the audience to have fun with it as well.