Full disclosure: my usual taste runs loud, big, and creature-shaped, so a folk-horror serial that sells itself on restraint was not an obvious fit. It got my attention anyway. Dirty Cinema released the finale of Rites of the Woods on Nov. 6, and it closes the way a good campfire story does: on a possession, with a door left open for a sequel.
The setup is pure folk-horror furniture: a cabin, a broken-down truck, a cult, and a prophecy that needs somebody to fulfill it. That somebody is Raee Ripley, playing a possessed woman, with Jason Sarcinelli and Dee Williams in the cast. Site head Peter King is selling restraint over gore (“This feature is very subtle, and that’s what makes it even more frightening,” he told XBIZ), and he is selling Ripley as the queen of the psychological thriller, down to the way she holds her eyes. That is a bold thing to hang a serial on, and it is where I would look first.
But, theatrics aside, the format is the real dare. In an episodic drop every chapter still has to deliver its scene, so the dread has to be built between the scenes instead of in place of them. King says the ending leaves room for more. Raee Ripley looks really hot as a posessed Goth girl and I like that they took the acting and story line seriously.
This one should suit fans of slow-burn cabin-in-the-woods dread, who want the payoff to arrive on schedule. Whatever the cult has planned for the sequel, the truck is still broken down.
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