The Legend of Harrow Woods 3D [DVD]

Okay, so I bought this film cheap, but I still feel ripped off. "The Legend of Harrow Woods" is quite possibly the worst film I've ever seen. In fact, delete "quite" and "possibly:" it is without doubt the worst film I've ever seen. It has no redeeming features: it is badly directed, badly produced, badly scripted, badly acted and the special effects - if they deserve to be called "special" - are laughable. (The computer generated rain at the end of film, which does not wet either the hair or the clothes of the actors, is particularly ridiculous.)

Worst of all it is overlayed with an annoying voice over of Poe's "The Raven," though any links to that great narrative poem are flimsy at best. The voice is that of Christopher Walken, a pointless waste of a talented actor. Other cameos are pointless also: Rik Mayall and Norman Wisdom, for example. How the producers of "Harrow Woods" managed to persuade such talent is beyond me: the only logical answer may be that they had something on them and blackmailed them into participating!

The reference to Poe gives us a clue to how the director and producers saw this film: they saw "Harrow Woods" as a serious film, cleverly referencing other horror genres, both literary and cinematic. Kubrick's "The Shining," for instance, is clumsily alluded to, as is Raimi's "The Evil Dead." The atmosphere is that of David Lynch, but it fails utterly to convey menace or fear.

The pretensions of this film are its most annoying feature. It tries so hard, irritatingly hard, yet in the process of making it "arty" they have lost the simple raison d'être of a horror film: to frighten. Forget the flare and style, just tell us a good story and scare the bejesus out of us. In the hands of a great director, like Kubrick or Lynch, horror can be innovative and adventurous. But this director had neither the skill nor the imagination to carry it off. It had the feel of a cheaply made student film, with all his mates chipping in as actors and crew.

Asked for a summary of "The Legend of Harrow Woods," I would say that "harrow" may appear in the title, but it is more harrowing to watch. Do not spoil a good Saturday night: avoid.

This film could have been sooo much better. Instead, in my opinion, it's poorly edited and very disjointed, the dialog is extremely stilted and wooden and about as scary as a jam donut! Spent the first 45 minutes bored stiff wondering if it was worth seeing the rest, decided to watch the rest as I'd bought it. Unfortunately the rest of it wasn't much better. A waste of the talents of Christopher Walken, Rik Mayall and Norman Wisdom (albeit in cameo type roles) - I wonder if they knew what they were signing up to? Shame really

I too wish I had read some of the other reviews before buying.

I am keenly into my horror genre of films, and have found a budget film to be good on many occasions. This was simply not one of them. I think the previous reviewers have hit the nail squarely on the head. Couple of big names to draw you in, but the main acting is wooden, the script is poor and the entire piece is largely disjointed. I would not recommend this.