Deep in
  the Woods 

Slasher Trash with Panache?

Review:JA Kerswell

This atypical, but beautifully shot, French slasher movie is perhaps the strangest of the post-SCREAM (1996) crop. A troupe of young actors are hired to perform a version of Red Riding Hood for the tenth birthday party of the grandson of an eccentric recluse at his chateau. However, they soon discover that the police are hunting a killer in the surrounding woods, but someone in a wolf mask is lurking closer to home and begins to kill them one by one. Borrowing from the cinema of Dario Argento, the film has been accused of being an exercise in style over substance, but its fairy tale ambience makes it a unique take on the subgenre.
 
The film introduces the five young actors as they drive towards their destination. They are given no backstory as such, although we learn they are made up of two seemingly carefree couples: Malhilde (Maud Buquet) and Matthieu (Clément Sibony), and Sophie (Clotilde Courau) and her mute lover Jeanne (Alexia Stresi). As well as the brooding, handsome Wilifried (Vincent Lecoeur). They are met at the gate of the estate by the creepy gameskeeper Stéphane (Denis Lavant), who ushers them into the ornate, Rococo chateaux. They are introduced to the man who hired them, the wheelchair bound Alex de Fersen (François Berléand), who appears even stranger than his manservant. After hearing snippets on the radio on the way there about a madman preying on young women, Alex tells the assembled group that the police were searching the woods nearby for the killer. The host also seems fascinated and bewitched by Wilifried, much to the young man’s obvious discomfort.
 
Despite some small misgivings, the troupe perform a very stylised version of Red Riding Hood for Alex’s grandson Nicolas (Thibault Truffert), where Wilifried dons a sinister-looking wolf mask. The actors are unsure whether the young boy enjoyed their performances as he sits watching in a near catatonic state throughout. They are further disturbed when he stabs his own hand with a fork during a bizarre dinner of tripe flambéed in vodka. Although they discuss leaving, they know they need to stay until morning to collect their pay. Whether anyone will live until morning is another matter … 

DEEP IN THE WOODS appeared several years before the advent of the hyper-violent French New Horror wave, ushered in by films such as HIGH TENSION (2003) and INSIDE (2007). That’s not to say that this film doesn’t have its share of bloody violence, but it isn’t its main focus. The comparison to North American slashers from this time is strengthened by the group photo of attractive twenty-somethings that adorned its advertising. However, to merely call it the French SCREAM would be a lazy comparison. Director Lionel Delplanque is clearly referencing the then-popular reinvention of the slasher movie (which obviously helped get this made and distributed overseas), but is also looking further back towards the Italian horror films of the ‘60s and ‘70s (especially the Giallo). The film’s opening features a woman (Marie Trintignant) reading a version of the fairy tale Red Riding Hood to an unseen child before being killed by a mysterious black-gloved assailant. Also, the poetic horrors of French filmmakers such as Jean Rollin and George Franju. As one critic put it, it feels as if this is the kind of film Kevin Williamson would have written if he had grown up with the films of Rollin or Jess Franco.
 
Much of the film has a dreamlike, Gothic atmosphere, with the chateaux bathed in light by a huge full moon. It sometimes feels akin to a disorientatingly woozy theatre production—most notably with the appearance of a policeman (Michel Muller), who appears from stage left at regular intervals. Although it has some elements of high strangeness (such as people simply vanishing in the woods before appearing later without comment)—and despite its allusions to fairytales and folklore—there are no overtly supernatural elements at play here. Rather, it is a whodunnit slasher murder mystery—albeit a decidedly oddball one. Characters choose to split up, wander off and have sex in the woods despite the reports of a mad rapist killer on the loose. However, gaps in logic are hardly unusual in a slasher movie. It is also worth noting that the film’s casual attitude to nudity (including full frontal) differentiates it from its more conservative mainstream North American cousins from the time.
 
Although it is somewhat light on suspense (there are no chase scenes), it does maintain a faintly menacing dreamlike ambience throughout. Despite being now over a quarter of a century old, and despite its dated fashions, the film manages to feel almost timeless, given its setting lost in time. It also helps that DEEP IN THE WOODS is beautifully shot (by cinematographer Denis Rouden) and is one of the best-looking and most stylish slasher films of the period. It also benefits from notably unhinged performances by character actors Denis Lavant and François Berléand. A modest hit in its native France (despite the expected rabidly scathing reviews that accused it of trying to ape North American films), it had over six times the domestic admissions compared to the arguably better-known HIGH TENSION a few years later. 
 
Whilst the film certainly has a respectable body count, those anticipating the more typical thrills of late ‘90s or early 2000s slashers might struggle with this. However, those with an open mind should find much here to enjoy. 

BODY COUNT 7: 
Female 3 / Male 5

1. Female is garrotted
2. Female is drowned in a sink
3. Female is shot with a bolt and falls to her death
4. Male is shot through the neck with a nail gun
5. Male is burned with acid and killed with a boobytrap
6. Male is shot through the mouth with a gun
7. Male is stabbed in the stomach and burns to death

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