Silver Woods (2017) (USA)

1/2

Because young people are idiots, the warnings of a park ranger are ignored and a gaggle of goofs find themselves fighting for their lives in the middle of the woods. Joining together for the first time in a long-ass time, the friends use a family cabin for a real hang session. Awkward dialogue and more awkward delivery of said dialogue makes the opening stretch an indecipherable mumble party scored by someone who picked public domain tracks set aside for a family comedy. I’d say it was done on purpose to throw the viewer off but that is giving the filmmaker way too much credit. Some people have a gift for the art of ad lib, these are not those people. They’re good at talking over each other but I don’t recommend that for any movie someone filmed on a weekend trip. During a night walk, two dudes meet a lonely writer who invites them over for dinner. They decide it’s a good choice to follow the stranger they met in the woods and eat his food. The writer tells them he’s heard some stories about the neck of woods they were warned away from. There’s a legend about cannibals living deep in the woods and a bear that snatched up a young girl. Satisfied with their meal and their interest piqued in the forbidden woods, the dudes head back to their cabin and decide the next day to hike out to the woods where they were forbidden to go. They do this before their friends wake up. When they return to the cabin, they’re acting kinda strange. They lure one of their friends into the woods for reasons and she vanishes. Then it just keeps going. Imagine spending a weekend trip with people you don’t really like and only know through a friend who backed out at the last minute. Then imagine these people lack anything close to human chemistry and rarely speak above the muffled voice of someone who has a sore throat and brain damage. Now throw in someone constantly promising you that something interesting is going to happen and then telling you about the interesting things instead of showing you because they decided to obsess over mediocre drama instead of action. This may be the worst vacation I’ve ever taken part in and I’ve been to the non-Disney parts of Florida.