There's been a renaissance of 80's slasher movie homage's lately but what makes Michael Hall's Kids Go to the Woods... Kids Get Dead different from its brethren is that Hall isn't really trying to be snarky or layer on the parody but, instead, is trying to recapture the feeling of recording one of these movies from late night television when you were young. He's even gone so far as to add-in static-filled splices, home movie footage, mock commercials, and a horror hostess called Candy Adams (Carly Goodspeed) who's presenting the movie as part of her "Midnight Movie Madness" show. It also happens to have a memorable title that ranks up there with such b-movie classics as Chopping Mall or Killer Klowns from Outer Space in its ability to make you smile.

Scott (Andrew Waffenschmidt) is a horror junkie who's reading the book of the title and finds himself getting dragged along for a weekend party in the woods at the request of his sister Casey (Leah Rudick) in order to celebrate her birthday. Along the way there Hall purposely trots out the clichés and campiness we'd expect from your standard slasher movie set-up as our gaggle of stereotypical youngsters get warned of danger by the local, seemingly kooky, store keep and proceed to drink heavily, attempt to get each other into bed, and bully the nerdy Scott.

Little do they know there's a gas mask wearing killer out in the woods and not too long after arriving at their cabin people start to die. The hippie Uncle that's letting them stay there for the weekend has his throat slit, a random camping couple are slain, and our birthday celebrants are next on the agenda. Eventually Scott figures out it all ties into the book he's reading and it leads to a finish that's more "meh" than anything.

Kids Go to the Woods... Kids Get Dead doesn't really pile on the deaths but there's enough good-natured humour, naked skin, and lesbianism to tide you over in the meantime. I definitely enjoyed how Hall structures everything but that might just be because it plays heavily on my nostalgia for recording any horror flick I could off of television and wearing out numerous VHS tapes in the process - something that you could never capture again in this age of PVR's and downloading.

The pacing here feels just right and thanks to a likeable cast, some decent effects work that includes a well-done "face smashed into mirror" moment, and the general sense of fun you get while watching it, this is an entertaining romp that goes down easy despite the fact it ends on a fairly weak note and scenes involving the store owner and two policemen tends to stop things in their tracks.

As the film's heroine, Rudick is merely 'okay' as she's generally going through the motions. Waffenschmidt fares better as her luckless brother giving off a nerdy charm but the movie belongs to Seth Stephens who is almost perfect playing the prick-ish Tom and I can't deny the fact that Goodspeed slapped a goofy smile on my face as our pun dropping, giggle happy hostess.

Kids Go to the Woods... Kids Get Dead marks a fun little feature-length debut for writer-director Hall. He's definitely succeeded in reaching his goal of sharing his love of old school slasher movies with us and he's brought along a game cast to do so and even though things do stumble at times, if you grew-up on a steady diet of these types of flicks you'll get quite a bit of enjoyment from what's on display here. Check it out! (Chris Hartley, 7/29/09)

Directed By: Michael Hall.
Written By: Michael Hall.

Starring: Leah Rudick, Andrew Waffenschmidt, Meghan Miller, Eric Carpenter.

Picture Ratio: 1.78:1 Widescreen.

Picture Quality: There's some mild grain at times but the picture here is perfectly acceptable and clean of any debris. I believe it was shot digitally which makes it look better than most of the movies it's imitating.

Extras: While it would've been cool to have a commentary track included, the special features here are an alright batch as we get trailers, a five-minute gag reel, four "behind-the-scenes" featurettes that focus on particular moments, and three deleted scenes which tend to not work that well as they're too obviously attempts at comic relief.

More more info visit Darkstar Entertainment.