Tubi Thursday: Escape to Black Tree Forest (2012)

 The Sequel has to be better, right? 
He's had more experience and knows what he's doing now, right?
Right?!?

The Film opens by showing what we clearly didn't see last time- our Final Girl stabbing the killer.

Is he dead now?
Are they ever?

2 weeks (and three minutes of boring Credits) later, she's brought home from an Asylum...apparently.

She's fine, right?

No, another Strode- seriously, they use that name- goes crazy.

Not Jamie/Laurie stabs her Mom and leaves.

Her Dad, eventually, goes after her.

She decides to dress up like the killer she just killed (since she must kill again) and wander around in the Woods.

So what happens after 20 minutes of setup?

Nothing- for nearly 40 minutes!

Instead, let's follow a new group of dead bodies...I mean, people going shopping, going swimming and- eventually- going to the titular Forest.

Do you want to just make Nature Documentaries?

Lots of filler as we see Dad driving, a random Cop driving, an old guy called in to help...and immediately killed.

Wait- I thought she was in the Forest.

After we get the Intro of the last Film AGAIN as a 'story,' the group splits up and things finally happen.

Yawn.  The End.

Did he somehow make a worse Film?  In a way, yes.

All things considered, the first Film was just so generic, unimaginative and just plain there that I couldn't even be mad.  Like a passive aggressive parent, I was 'just disappointed.'

To be fair, Dustin Ferguson had only made SIX FILMS at this point.  Now- in 2012- he's made nine.

This one is worse because he clearly knows what he did wrong and just pivots entirely the wrong direction.  Spending so much time on filler is just not helpful to anyone.  I guess it pays off, but does anyone care after so much nothing happening.

Seriously, they don't even 'escape' to said Forest until nearly an hour into this *checks timer* 76-minute Film (I don't count End Credits, do you?)!  Pick up the pace, Movie- you're being passed by the fat kid in Gym!

If you make a boring Film once, it's bad.  If you do it a second time after you should know better, it's worse.  It makes you just want to, I don't know, lay down in a Field.

On the plus side, Black History Month via Tubi Thursday is done.  I can put off watching the third Film for some time.

Tubi Thursday: Terror at Black Tree Forest (2010)

 A Film so generic that even its Title has since been reused!

I'm all for helping out Indy Filmmakers, but you have to make something interesting and unique.  I got this instead...

In 1970, a masked man- think The Town That Dreaded Sundown or Friday the 13th: Part 2/3- kills a man and has his way with the Wife.

He sees the kid and chases him, catching up and...

We're just cutting there, eh?

After what felt like 10 minutes of Credits over shots of the same Forest, we just spent nearly 10 minutes in, we meet our Heroes.

They are, say it with me, going Camping.

They hear about an escaped mental patient on the loose via Exposition Radio- Channel 102.5- but ignore it.

He's far away and back in the old Film Stock.

Come nightfall, the killer has dressed up like the guy at the beginning.

You see, he's the kid who survived...apparently and went crazy...apparently.

Now that it is nighttime, they tint things blue and my eyes hurt for the next 30 minutes.

To make a long story- even though the Film is about 50 minutes long without Credits- short, he kills pretty much everyone until we have one Girl left.

She runs, hides and...

...is grabbed by the killer.

She...does something.  Judge for yourself by this shot below.

We see her the next Morning and she says that the Killer is dead, but there's no body.
That's it.
The End.

Oy, where do I begin?

This thing is so stock that I need to make soup out of it!  There's nothing new here- at all.

It's a cliche Story with nothing Characters and nothing out of the ordinary.

By 2010, we've had literally hundreds of Slasher Films, including ones that satirize the Genre to various degrees of success.  Did we need another cheap, nothing-to-see-here Slasher?

There's no irony.
There's no twist.
There's barely any payoff.

It's not so good that you need to see it or so bad that you need to see it ironically.  The Director had, by this point, made 6 other Films- not that you could tell.  He's gone on to make- I s**t you not, 118 more in the ensuing 13 years.

This is a Film so bad that they can't do fake Newspapers right...

A Film made with no hook, no irony and no excitement.  Yea.