This review is long overdue. It has been exactly a year since I have seen the film at IndieCork Film Festival and many of the finer details are not so clear in my mind anymore. But I promised myself to write one to support this Irish indie production at least in this smallest of ways.
When the film started I thought to myself, please not another found footage horror. But soon the film changed gears and not for the first time and I started to realize this is not another Blair Witch Project and the film began to resemble more the original Wicker Man. It was clear that the latter in particular was a big influence on the director but it was not another tired copy but a great film in its own right.
What makes this type of horror a good film, and this is true for many other films not just horror, is how well you establish the characters at the beginning before the bad stuff started happening. At that stage you have to like or hate them enough to care what happens to them. And Crone Wood succeeds to do just that, to introduce the lead protagonists to us in the short amount of time thanks to the solid performances of the actors playing them and the strong direction by Mark Sheridan. You can tell throughout the film that he is big fan and student of the horror genre which helps him to skilfully avoid the usual clichés as he plays with the twists and turns and our own expectations. Highly recommend to check this one out.
When the film started I thought to myself, please not another found footage horror. But soon the film changed gears and not for the first time and I started to realize this is not another Blair Witch Project and the film began to resemble more the original Wicker Man. It was clear that the latter in particular was a big influence on the director but it was not another tired copy but a great film in its own right.
What makes this type of horror a good film, and this is true for many other films not just horror, is how well you establish the characters at the beginning before the bad stuff started happening. At that stage you have to like or hate them enough to care what happens to them. And Crone Wood succeeds to do just that, to introduce the lead protagonists to us in the short amount of time thanks to the solid performances of the actors playing them and the strong direction by Mark Sheridan. You can tell throughout the film that he is big fan and student of the horror genre which helps him to skilfully avoid the usual clichés as he plays with the twists and turns and our own expectations. Highly recommend to check this one out.