Obviously, this movie is made for a very specific market, the horror film fans who love their stories full of raunch, cheese, and gore, while mixing it with love and perhaps bloodlust for the slasher sub-genre, all wrapped in a crass offensive title, Don’t Fuck in the Woods (DFITW). After all, it plays on the rules in horror movies, if you engage in sexual acts, you die, this simply states that point blank and frankly, layers it with monster b-movie aspects. Therefore, Shawn Burkett, who served as director and writer created a quick flick in the length of 62-minutes, on a lean budget under $20,000 which references by title and numerous themes to Don’t Go in the Woods (1981). Shawn delivers a fun movie with the standard clichés often found in the genre, and successfully achieved distribution through Gravitas Ventures in 2017.
First, this movie tries to balance the horror and comedy, and clearly delivers a thoroughly impolite and fifthly film, which obtained great assistance from the dedicated and passionate horror fans on Indiegogo funding a few different rounds of pleas for money, dating back to 2014. A group of college friends venture into the woods for some fun and relaxation, but unaware to them, a monster stalks the woods, attracted to the scent of sex, and this creature really reminds one of Roger Corman’s creations for the 50s and 60s era. Quickly the audience knows not to take any portion of the film serious, this actually narrows down to nudity and gore, a perfect treat for the splatterpunks, who enjoy the grimy VHS films of exploitation and extreme low budgeted production. One of the members of the group, Alex (Ayse Howard) hopes to find her friend Meg (Brandy Mason (Plan 9 [2015]), who definitely made her presence known) and Meg’s boyfriend, Luke (played by Scott Gillespie) who venture into the woods only to never be heard of since. However, this group aside from Alex and her dear friend Jane (Brittany Blanton), as well as Lacey and Conor (Nadia White and Brian Cornell), ladies’ man, Mac (Roman Jossart) and lastly Parker (Hannah Herdt (Loon [2015]). Already a clear indication too many characters but a nice size for a massacre. By the time night rolls around the passions erupt with scent of sex and self gratification luring the creature to the camp. Therefore, quickly discover the amateurish styles with references in the dialogue and humor, but audience for this movie understands exactly the intention of the flick.
Burkett uses his location, very well, though the production was shut down due to the distribution to a hornet’s nest causing some individuals to visit an emergency room. Aside from that, the movie generates a solid audio score, and give adequate amount of lightning two things which often suffer greatly in low budgeted production. In addition, Shawn uses various styles of music to convey diverse array moments, rather staying with the conventional metal or synth, a brave maneuver; but one of positive reinforcement of his movie. The character, Parker, delivers the most enjoyable lines of dialogue with the horror movie reference makes one think of Randy from Scream (1996). Sadly, a lot of the blood and gore takes places either in darkness or off screen, a clear indication of the limited financial resources. One needs to note that the poster art reference one other cult classic horror film, known as I Spit on Your Grave (1978), showing once more Shawn’s respect and knowledge of the horror genre.
Viewers expecting, and overabundance of gore and nudity because of the title and poster art, likely not overly enthused, the sexual content does come it multiple styles and sometimes borders of compassionate, but never gets overly sleazy. The blood spillage happens, but lasts barely enough time to salivate over it, but watching the movie, means one thing you definitely understand the subtext and the limitations yet find the creature feature battling the slasher subgenre of interest. A sequel appears to follow this one, though last time checked it’s still listed in pre-production.
https://www.facebook.com/DFITW
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3620452/
IMDb Rating: 2.6/10
Baron’s Rating: 2.5/10