NOBODY SLEEPS IN THE WOODS TONIGHT

Nobody Sleeps in the Woods Tonight Movie Review 

A group of youngsters are sent to a camp in the middle of nowhere to break their addiction to...technology. The large group is split up into smaller groups to go on hikes, and we follow one such group, consisting of a quiet loner girl (Julia Wieniawa-Narkiewicz), a nerdy boy (Michal Lupa), a promiscuous blonde (Wiktoria Gasiewska), a jock (Sebastian Dela), and a gay fella (Stanisław Cywka), all led by their adult counselor (Gabriela Muskała). 

Our heroes

Once in the woods, the group comes across cannibal monsters, and the fight for survival is on! The names of the actors probably gave this away already, but in case you're wondering, this film comes to us from Poland, and was hyped as "the first Polish slasher movie". If you watch this on Netflix, you will notice one thing very early on--the film is dubbed, and done so very poorly. Having seen many movies presented this way, I was okay with this, but my girlfriend was having none of it. If your tolerance for bad dubbing is on the level of Sani's, you will be happy to know there is the option to switch to the original audio and subtitles in your own language. Once this change was made, we continued watching, noticing a good bit bit of comedy early on--while this element never completely went away, it did slowly give way to a more traditional horror approach. If you are a fan of horror (and since you are reading this right now, I assume you are), you will recognize a lot of what is happening in this film, as it has many scenes that are not so subtle nods to movies that came before it--Friday the 13th Part VII, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and Wrong Turn are just a few. As for the monsters, they look like some sort of deformed trolls, but their story is actually quite tragic, and they look really cool.

His appetite is out of this world

Something the movie pulled off well is making the viewer care about some of the characters--my girlfriend was near tears at one point. Gorehounds will delight in this flick as well, as the blood flies throughout, and the death scenes are executed nicely. Be sure to pay attention to the music, as it is one of the best scores I've heard in a while. Throw in some surprises, and there's a lot to like about this outing. Unfortunately, the end leaves a bit to be desired (but also leaves the door open for a sequel), and the lead in to it is rather weak. I know a lot of people are not taking kindly to this movie because of its heavy borrowing of other films--again, I see this as more a tip of the cap to them than thievery. While there is not a ton of originality in Nobody Sleeps in the Woods Tonight, it is a fun horror film, and one of the better ones you'll find on Netflix right now. 

On A Scale Of One To Ten: 7

Nobody Sleeps in the Woods Tonight Movie Trailer