Dark Woods (2010)
3/10
The weak man, the sick woman, the batty girl.
10 February 2011
Warning: Spoilers
Long-suffering and frustrated man moves to the country some place with his needy, erratic wife who has cancer as an alternative to her spending the remainder of her time in a hospital after chemotherapy. Late one evening, not long into their stay, Susan (the wife) who was resting on a sofa calls Henry (the husband) and tells him she saw someone in the window. He's doubtful but goes out to investigate with a fireplace poker. He sees no one and goes to the window to look in and let Susan know everything is okay. But as he's signaling to her with his hand pressed against the window he sees the shadow of a man enter the room. He runs around to the door where he finds the man is holding his wife and touching her. He stands there a moment and watches (Unbelievable!). Then while still standing rooted to the spot with his fireplace poker, he eventually manages to say "Get away from her!" This molester paid no attention to Henry when he came thru the door and he pays no attention to him now. He continues to grope and feel a few more seconds while Henry stands there watching (Unbelievable!). Then suddenly, the man let's go of his wife and runs off.

Henry reports the incident to the local sheriff who seems unsympathetic and not too believing. But seems to know who the man might be by Henry's description. He says he'll go over to his place and have a word with him. A day or two later, Susan wakes up in good spirits. She seems to be in a romantic mood and Henry is happy to get down to business after being denied for so long. However, Susan insists she wants to shower first. So while she's in the shower, Henry leaves her alone to go jogging (Unbelievable!); something no normal man would do so soon after what happened. Anyway, as fate would have it, while on his jog, he encounters the same guy trying to rape a young girl. For some reason, Henry doesn't hesitate this time and chases the guy off. He takes the girl home, and reports the incident to the sheriff. The sheriff convinces Henry to let the girl stay with him and his wife until he gets some things sorted.

The girl it turns out is not as innocent as she seemed. She's intrusive, spoiled, and somewhat possessive of Henry. Moreover, may also have a few screws that are not in tight. After about 25 minutes in, the rest of the movie is about how the relationship of Henry, his wife Susan, and the girl plays out. This movie is over 90 mins long. For the most part, it is uneventful and therefore slow. The story has merit --but it would have been more interesting and effective if it was a short feature about 40 mins long. As it is, most of the movie is padded by uninteresting talk to stretch it out over 90 mins. I found I was constantly bored waiting for something eventful to happen. The end shows Henry to be a sad, pathetic man. But I knew that when the movie started. Love, Boloxxxi.
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