The Woods

Or: in this post, I get my amateur film criticism on.

In 1965, Heather Fasulo (Agnes Brukner), after nearly burning down her house, is sent to an isolated all-girl's private school headed by Miss Traverse (Patricia Clarkson). Almost immediately, because this is a horror film, she begins having nightmares and hearing voices, all while having to adapt to a new school, bullying included. Of course, the school isn't particularly friendly. The staff looms over the students silent and impersonal, there is hushed gossip about a girl who tried to kill herself, and there are tales of witches who took over the school long ago.

It's pretty easy to figure out what's going to happen in The Woods. The academy, all dull earthy tones with thin vines creeping through never-shut windows and suffocated with potted plants, very quickly foreshadows the revelation that the woods are alive. When the girls discuss the witches the invaded the school, coupled with a very early comment that the staff consists of former students, it's not hard to see where that is going to. Even the bully eventually coming out and telling Heather that she's trying to help her is subtly lit by her aggressive harassment and warnings.

Even as predictable as it is, The Woods is a decent film. The mise en scene does a good job of setting up the suffocating atmosphere of the school, and the aforementioned vines do a nice job of providing a paranoid fear of encroaching terror. My only real quibble is that I would have liked to have seen the whole "1965 girls' school" thing taken further, a bit more exploration of the social expectations and molding that often go on in single-sex schools; they touched a bit upon that with malicious gossip of lesbianism in the periphery.