In this movie a lumbering man is seen from behind, walking through the woods for maybe 45 of the first 70 minutes. It is not 45 minutes straight but 45 minutes here and there of him walking through the woods. It is clever – a take on the slow moving Jason Vorhees plodding along in a slow motion yet everywhere all at once. Even though he is brought back from the dead he is as strong as Hercules but as slow as that tax return you need to get your carpet deep and steam cleaned. He walks and walks and walks and walks and we follow him from a cabin to a campfire to a forest ranger station to a lake to a cliff to a cabin to etc etc etc etc. And he walks and he walks through the brambles and snapdragons and sometimes he kills and the kills are brutally beautiful.

I want to hand it off – is that right? – I’m not handing anything off except for my praise but I want to give excellent props, high fives and butt slaps to the effects team on here. The practical effects are great and squishy and creative and novel and gruesome and bravo you mother scratchers good job! On the other hand which I am not handing off either – there’s something seriously wrong with the ADR or dialogue sound in this thing. I don’t know if it was on purpose to elicit some effect that the lumbering and plodding fellow can’t really understand what’s being said or to give us an idea that he hears things from far away but the voiceover was awful. The voices rarely matched the lip or mouth movement and everything was soft and mostly unintelligible but maybe that was just me. Imagine if you and i were sitting in a room and i was talking to you and blathering on about this or any other movie i talk about and all you heard were the occasional vowels or some sort of muttering and just made out some words occasionally like “handing” and “seriously’ and “ADR” and you were all “huh did he say eighty are? what is his stupid problem can’t he speak up is he truly the biggest dipshit we all thought he was huh?”. Imagine it just like that.

But whatever we think of this movie: good or bad, happy or sad, shit eating grin or disarming smile, the best part of the movie happens with this character below. Let’s set it up so we don’t forget. Aside from the unbearable ADR we see this lady run off into the woods leaving her possible maybe hook up girl friend alone in the lake (her fate is in the poster up top). We come across the blond here, doing aerobics or yoga or Pilates or something at the top of a cliff when she hears the big bad guy rattle up nearby with his chains. Thinking it’s her maybe soon to be lover girl she smiles and turns around all happy to greet and maybe embrace upon her with lust and sweaty desire. Unfortunately she sees the undead yet clothed corpse of the guy who was buried in the dirt under a locket out in a shack and he’s pissed and wearing an old fire ranger’s mask. Naturally she screams and runs in the opposite direction but wouldn’t you oops and aboot know it but there’s that danged cliff there and either way she knows she’s done for and her Canadian goose is really cooked. I don’t know if it was coached or good acting or dumb luck but she gives the best “well I guess I’m going to die a hideous and horrible death” frowny face I’ve seen in forever and then takes a pick axe to the head. And just in case you felt bad for her he then rips her head backwards through the front of her body and it is slow and gross and absolutely wonderful practical effects work. It’s not hideous and torturous and vile because I can’t really take that any more it’s just kind of awesome and fun. I wish I had thought of that sequence.

But even if we think about all of the slow walking and bad voice quality – I really liked this for the most part. There was even a little humor in there with the locket.

I also really liked the guy’s creepy monster villain mask:

And then something really weird just kind of happens and they shift the entire tone of the movie to something else. I mean it’s still slow and deliberate and i guess the tone doesn’t shift but the focus shifts and the last twenty minutes or so is something else entirely and – I don’t know about you – but i was just waiting for something to happen to conclude this thing and waiting and waiting and waiting and waiting and waiting and waiting and then it was just over and I think I have an idea of what they might have been going for but I was talking to Chris about it the other night and we both agreed that that was kind of a big – sorry to be crude – but some big movie blue balls there and then it was just over. Kind of how I guess I’ll end this post and look out my room’s window and