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Review: Rootwood

For most of Rootwood's running time, I was hooked. Director Marcel Walz crafted a decent, low-budget horror movie that paid homage to The Blair Witch Project without blatantly trying to rip it off.

The story involves a group of podcasters, well played by scream queen Elissa Dowling, and Tyler Gallant, who are hired by a Hollywood producer (Sleepaway Camp's Felissa Rose) to document the legend of The Wooden Devil, and several mysterious disappearances in the nearby Rootwood Forest.

We get what we expect: hikes in the woods, an increasing number of creepy goings on, and then the documentarians (our podcasters recruit their friend, the beautiful Sarah French) begin falling prey to something in the woods.

All this is well handled, and the strengths of our three leads carry the film, along with some decent direction by Walz.

Then we reach the final act, which starts with a jarring bang. There's no easing into it; we're dropped right in the middle of a horror sequence. There's a chase, and then a late, late, late third-act twist that threatened to ruin the whole movie. THEN another twist that made me want to throw my remote through the TV.

Three quarters of Rootwood are decent, and the movie was actually heading for a Good. The BS of the finale almost dropped it into Ugly territory, but I'm gonna settle on a Bad and move on.
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