Michael Ledo
Josh (Mike Beckingham) and his Girlfriend Beth (Tatjana Nardone) go hiking in the Redwood Forest...the one that has vampires in it that only stay in the gray areas on a map and never go into the green areas. We already know there are vampires from the film description. We don't get to see much of them and only late in the film. Josh has leukemia and maybe 6 months. They meet Vincent (Nicholas Brendon) along the way because they want to have at least one person in the film with a vampire name and BTW Vincent tells us about a miracle cure in the gray area on the map...but it doesn't work. To no surprise, Josh and Beth take a shortcut through the gray area. There is an opening scene that ties into the end. The vampires are far from the Bela type and are feral. Film was fairly predictable. Scares come toward the end. Guide: F-word. No sex or nudity.
michaelant555
A couple go into the woods for a camping trip and are told to stay away from the gray zone areas and stick to the green zone. It's pretty simple, really, but you know how these things turn out - in a moment of stupidity and after being warned a couple of times the guy's like, "Hey! I know, let's take a short cut!"...Next thing you know they find themselves in vampire territory.Very Low-budget horror where the fear is generated by a combination of over-acted emotions and creature screams. You don't see much of the creature and when you do they're extremely lame and cheap. The only thing that saved this for me was that it wasn't a found-footage film. I saw the 6/10 rating so I was expecting something good but I ended up very disappointed.
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REDWOOD is definitely not the typical vampire movie. Josh (Mike Beckingham) and Beth (Tatjana Inez Jardone) are a couple who go camping at the Redwood forest. We can tell this is a horror film from the get go, with an ominous cold open that in great "X-Files" style sort of lets us know exactly what will happen to these characters, and yet it does so without spoiling anything (which is the tough thing to pull-off when it comes to cold opens) Josh has been diagnosed with Leukemia and Beth is as supportive as she can be, but Josh's diagnosis and his attitude towards it is beginning to wear her off. The couple encounters a "ranger" (Nicholas Brendon, from Buffy the Vampire Slayer) who warns them not to stray from the main path, and of course in typical horror fashion Josh and Beth don't do as they are told. What is not typical is what happens to them next as they encounter a supernatural threat dwelling in the woods, but perhaps it's not the mythical creatures of Redwood forest that they should be worried about the most; sometimes people and their selfishness can be worse than any creature creeping in the dark.REDWOOD forest like any good horror film, knows that the horror doesn't come from the creatures nor jump-scares but rather from people themselves. The most horrifying aspect of the film is not the vampires stalking Josh and Beth in the dark, but rather Josh and Beth themselves and their relationship. Relationships are tough, they require work and sometimes they require sacrifice. Sometimes the sacrifice is figurative and sometimes it is literal. Josh and Beth's relationship feels real, they feel like friends at times, and then they feel like strangers as well. We rarely see them kiss, or being tender to one another, perhaps because that stage of their relationship is long gone, and due to Josh's leukemia their relationship has grown even colder. But like any long-standing relationship they bicker more than anything. We spend most of the run-time with these two alone in the forest, anyone who has ever gone on a couple's trip knows that being alone with just the two can sometimes lead to some ugly events. Discussions about the future, about how each other had plans and hopes, about how apart they have grown and how they are almost strangers to one another. Josh and Beth's relationship can be sweet as well, playful even, but it tends to lean more towards the ugly more often than not. It's this very real depiction of what it's like to be in a relationship and how draining it can be for both parties that is the true backbone of REDWOOD. Towards the very end we realize that what we saw in the prologue will happen to Josh and Beth as well, but when put into context we realize just how committed the film is to its thesis that relationships can be draining in more ways than just emotionally. REDWOOD's climax is a representation of how selfishness is sometimes the only way to survive a relationship in order to move on with one's life and plans, no one wants to be seen as "at fault" after a break-up, but it's the only way to survive sometimes. And after heartbreak and betrayal, the other half can turn into a monster as well.REDWOOD is written and directed by Tom Paton, using its exterior locations for maximum effect. The forest itself is shot fantastically making it seem both harmless and later on as creepy. We don't know if the towers and the mausoleum were built or found locations, but they look fantastic and strange beyond believe. That these decaying structures were built in the middle of the woods make no sense at all, and this is what elevates the mythology. Just what are those things doing there? The Cinematography by Mike Stern Sterzynski and George Burt is crisp and crystal clear, taking in all the detail in the trees. It's never over lit nor too moody, the night-time shots are pulled-off quite well, often times night shots in horror movies can look unnatural due to light sources that seemingly come from nowhere or are shot too dark in the name in realism, keeping us from discerning the action. But not here, we can tell what's going on at all times, particularly when the creatures attack, which is key. The entire film rests in the shoulders of its two leads; Mike Beckingham and Tatjana Nardone who do great work and are tasked with a very difficult balancing act of being both insufferable and likable (in other words "realistic") as Josh and Beth. At times their bickering makes us wish they got eaten by the creatures, but when it looks like that may happen, their character development actually makes us worry for their well-being. This is incredibly complex, since it's not that they are annoying, but rather how unglamorously they relatable they are. Theirs is not a "love story", that phase is long gone, this is the horrible break-up. The vampire design is smartly pulled-off thanks to the way they are shot, always keeping the creatures from being fully shown, thus hiding any defects that the low budget may bring. The sound design is terrific, the creature's whaling at night is skin-crawling inducing. And better yet, the central concept at the heart of what the vampires are and what Josh and Beth are really doing there is an interesting mythological wrinkle that keeps the film from not proposing anything new. It's very "Wicker Man" and that's all we'll say about it. Overall, as low-budget as it is, the money is well-spent and the "altar" imagery is particularly memorable.
