Starring: John Muscarnero, Tracy Coogan, Mary Kate Wiles
Written By: John Muscarnero
Directed By: Michael Escobedo
Grade: B

Dark Woods is a psychological thriller and character heavy piece taking place in a secluded cabin in the woods. A creepy and dangerous man is involved, but this isn’t your typical stalking killer flick. In fact, there really is no blood at all and limited violence. This creepy man only makes a few appearances, both which he molests helpless women. Yet his real purpose is just to get a few plot points in line. The real suspense and trouble comes through a dangerous love triangle with fatal consequences.

Henry (Muscarnero) takes his sick wife, Susan (Coogan) to a cabin in the wilderness. She has cancer and all previous attempts at treatment have failed. This is their last chance to be together in peace. One night, Susan sees a mysterious man through the window. When Henry tries to check it out, the man walks in to the house and molests Susan who is unable to do anything in defense. They complain to the sheriff who really isn’t able to do much of anything about it. Not long after this he finds another woman in distress, Alicia, being sexually assaulted by the same man who we later find out is her uncle.

The sheriff asks Henry if he can take her in for the time being until they find her family. He hesitates but doesn’t want this poor girl to be on her own. Alicia is in a bad place; she feels victimized, and is desperate for acceptance and someone to connect with. Henry becomes this person she yearns to get acceptance from. She becomes very aggressive towards him, flirting with him and trying to get his wife out of the way.

Amongst this, Susan passes out and when a doctor comes to see her he says all that they can do is wait for her to hopefully wake up. While she is in this coma state, her inner consciousness is the only one present. We see a dreamlike world through Susan, showing where her thoughts and fears lie. Meanwhile, Henry doesn’t know if his wife is going to wake up or not while he has a young, lustful girl eyeing him and trying to get in to his bed. Henry is trying to be responsible and to do the right thing, but even he can’t deny that he has longing feelings for Alicia. She begins getting in to his head more and more, getting him to question his true feelings, and gets him to act on the darker nature within him.

Mary Kate Wiles was the standout performance as Alicia. She gave us a sweet and innocent vibe while showing a much darker, lustful, and conniving nature. Even when her more selfish intentions become clear, she still wears her past torment on her face. She’s at a very unstable state and is so desperate for Henry to make everything better. Wiles really nails the fine line between the victim and predator inside of her. John Muscarnero does pretty well also, especially considering this film marks a lot of firsts for him. It’s his first time out as an actor, writer, and producer. He shows struggle as Henry, trying to stay faithful and be responsible in order to protect this tortured young girl. At the same time, he shows that his inner urges are screaming at him to do something else entirely. At certain times I could have used a little more emotion from him to really relate how he was conflicted and how this girl was able to bring that out in him with his sick, dying wife by his side. Tracy Coogan captured the biggest victim of all of them though. She had those attacking her in the outside world as well as this disease that was consuming and taking over her from the inside out.

The darker elements in the film could have been increased and taken a bit farther. The moments that were present had great tension and excitement, but I think it could have been taken farther for the film to reach its potential. The attacker seemed to be mostly there for plot points to take place and then he seemed to just disappear. Him coming back to hunt the two women who have gotten away from him would make a lot of sense plus it would add a lot of suspense. The pacing is a little slow at some points, but there is a lot of thrill, temptation, and character development. It’s a good looking film and most of the characters are easy enough to feel for despite some of their faulty qualities. One refreshing thing in the film is that the characters seem to act pretty realistically, thus feeling like real people. In real life, things don’t always end pretty and Dark Woods follows this through many unstable, conflicted, and somewhat selfish characters who dead towards a down spiral. Going further in to the characters pasts, emotions, and desires as well as the suspense, danger, and darkness around them would have taken the film farther and depicted the interesting characters and human desires inside of them.