Shared Darkness

Multi-hyphenate Matthew Bora’s low-budget horror flick Fear the Forest co-stars Anna Kendrick. No, no… not that Anna Kendrick. A different one. But if I were Bora, I’d be slapping her name instead of my own above the title and everywhere else, even at the risk of courting some lawsuit, since there’s nothing else other than aggressively pursued consumer confusion to recommend this bloated slice of indie schlock.

After a flashback opening linking a ghost-like creature to Native Americans, Fear the Forest lurches into the present day, in Mohawk Valley, New York, where a bunch of kids journey deep into the woods for a weekend getaway. Naturally, deaths ensue, while air-quote production value is achieved via motocross footage and a tipped-over canoe.

Because Bora is swinging for the fences, there’s some plot nonsense about a governor’s daughter, and plenty of phony, risible political intrigue. Basically all this means, however, is that Fear the Forest is both terrible and long (110 minutes), since its acting is awful, its dialogue ridiculous (“Girl, you are all that and a bag of chips!”) and its story a mixed-up hodge-podge of stolen ideas executed much better almost anywhere else.

Housed in a regular plastic Amaray case with a push-in spindle, Fear the Forest comes to DVD presented in 1.78:1 widescreen, with an English language 2.0 stereo audio track. In addition to the movie’s trailer and a pair of music videos, supplemental bonus material consists of five minutes of deleted scenes, as well as a hearty collection of behind-the-scenes and making-of featurettes totaling nearly 60 minutes. All of the on-set interviews are of course of the rather self-congratulatory variety, and the attention to detail is tipped off by the fact that some material refers to the movie as Fear the Forest and other just Fear Forest. F (Movie) B- (Disc)

A suspense-free indie flick supernatural horror offering that pretty much serves as on-the-job training for all involved, Aberration is lacking across the board, both technically and narratively.

Caught up between high school frenemies Elliott (Cal Thomas) and Kyle (Kristian Capalik), Christy (Gwendolyn Garver) is a normal-ish teenage girl, but she also hides a secret — namely, that she’s plagued by terrifying visions of a ghostly, sunken-eyed young boy (Austin Kieler) who is decidedly not Haley Joel Osment. When one of her dreams comes true and a classmate turns up dead, Christy begins to suspect that her only hope of survival is to uncover the truth behind a mystery that has shrouded her entire town in terror.

Director Douglas Elford-Argent, working from a script by Wendy Elford-Argent, leans heavily on clichéd modes of stimulus goosing, to little effect. He and cinematographer Marc Menet drag out the official Simon West Colored Filters Starter Kit™, but it comes across as empty and showy rather than part of some unified visual theory for the material. And that material, by the way, so lacks in escalating tension that it leaves many of the actors herein to founder about, clearly out of their element.

Housed in a regular Amaray case, Aberration comes to DVD presented in a 2.35:1 anamorphic widescreen aspect ratio, with a Dolby digital 5.1 surround sound audio track and optional English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing. Naturally it also includes chapter stops, but there are otherwise no supplemental materials on the release. D- (Movie) D (Disc)