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Stay Out of the Woods: 3 Movies to Make You Rethink Camping

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The woods are lovely, dark, and deep… but they’re also creepy as hell so you should probably just avoid them. There have been many cautionary tales of why one should avoid the cabin in the woods scenario, but take away the relative safety of four walls and a roof (and plumbing), and things can go sideways very quickly.

Being alone in the woods can be scary, but the possibility that you’re not all alone is even more terrifying.

Man Vs.

Have you ever watched one of those Man Vs. Wild type survivor-man shows and wondered what the hell they would do if shit just hit the proverbial fan? Man Vs. does exactly that. Doug Woods (Chris Diamantopoulos), a “survival expert”, hosts a tv show using just the gear that he is left with. His support team is nearby, but he is – in every sense – on his own. Or so he thinks. He wakes up in the middle of his first night to a loud crash and things get progressively stranger and more dangerous. The woods create an isolation here that emphasizes Doug’s confusion and increasing fear. He’s completely helpless and he’s in way over his head.

The Interior

A listless young man, upon learning he is ill, leaves his job, girlfriend and city behind, and ventures alone into the British Columbia interior, bringing his fears and anxieties with him. The scenes in the woods are dialogue-free and mostly silent (except for the score of classical music) which adds a heavy weight to his journey. Beautifully shot, The Interior really highlights the terror of being completely and hopelessly isolated and knowing that someone unseen is out there with you. Each time our protagonist is cautious of another presence, he retreats deeper into the wilderness. The shots are so wide and open, yet it’s somehow claustrophobic. It’s a bit of a slow burn, but the atmosphere creates a tension that crawls over you.

The Blair Witch Project

Of course this is on the list. Stay with me here, though. I’ve included the original over the 2016 sequel because just about everything that happens to our unfortunate campers is more grounded in reality. The 2016 film had the effective horrors of forever darkness, time manipulation, a hands-on Blair Witch and that terrifying tunnel, but I wasn’t worried about that happening on my next camping trip.

The 1999 film used increasing levels of horror that seemed feasible. If you were camping and heard someone throwing rocks outside your tent, would you want to investigate, assuming that there’s someone there? Or would you assume there’s a natural – probably squirrel-based – explanation and ignore it? Things can be easily explained away, but The Blair Witch Project gave us a reason to be scared of the unknown. The woods take on a different character at night. Add in the possibility of being hopelessly lost and you’ve got something to be legitimately worried about.

The Blair Witch Project made its mark on the horror genre and built a real and pressing fear out of a few simple ideas. The stick bundles, nighttime noises, quietly disappearing crew and the image of someone silently facing a corner weren’t overly complex, but they were extremely effective. If you were nervous about camping before you first saw this movie, you were probably terrified afterwards.

 

Any movies you would add to this list? Tell us in the comments! If you want more outdoorsy horror, head on over to our list of 10 Camping Movies for more.

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‘Evil Dead’ Film Franchise Getting TWO New Installments

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It was a risk for Fede Alvarez to reboot Sam Raimi’s horror classic The Evil Dead in 2013, but that risk paid off and so did its spiritual sequel Evil Dead Rise in 2023. Now Deadline is reporting that the series is getting, not one, but two fresh entries.

We already knew about the Sébastien Vaniček upcoming film that delves into the Deadite universe and should be a proper sequel to the latest film, but we are broadsided that Francis Galluppi and Ghost House Pictures are doing a one-off project set in Raimi’s universe based off of an idea that Galluppi pitched to Raimi himself. That concept is being kept under wraps.

Evil Dead Rise

“Francis Galluppi is a storyteller who knows when to keep us waiting in simmering tension and when to hit us with explosive violence,” Raimi told Deadline. “He is a director that shows uncommon control in his feature debut.”

That feature is titled The Last Stop In Yuma County which will release theatrically in the United States on May 4. It follows a traveling salesman, “stranded at a rural Arizona rest stop,” and “is thrust into a dire hostage situation by the arrival of two bank robbers with no qualms about using cruelty-or cold, hard steel-to protect their bloodstained fortune.”

Galluppi is an award-winning sci-fi/horror shorts director whose acclaimed works include High Desert Hell and The Gemini Project. You can view the full edit of High Desert Hell and the teaser for Gemini below:

High Desert Hell
The Gemini Project

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‘Invisible Man 2’ Is “Closer Than Its Ever Been” to Happening

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Elisabeth Moss in a very well-thought-out statement said in an interview for Happy Sad Confused that even though there have been some logistical issues for doing Invisible Man 2 there is hope on the horizon.

Podcast host Josh Horowitz asked about the follow-up and if Moss and director Leigh Whannell were any closer to cracking a solution to getting it made. “We are closer than we have ever been to cracking it,” said Moss with a huge grin. You can see her reaction at the 35:52 mark in the below video.

Happy Sad Confused

Whannell is currently in New Zealand filming another monster movie for Universal, Wolf Man, which might be the spark that ignites Universal’s troubled Dark Universe concept which hasn’t gained any momentum since Tom Cruise’s failed attempt at resurrecting The Mummy.

Also, in the podcast video, Moss says she is not in the Wolf Man film so any speculation that it’s a crossover project is left in the air.

Meanwhile, Universal Studios is in the middle of constructing a year-round haunt house in Las Vegas which will showcase some of their classic cinematic monsters. Depending on attendance, this could be the boost the studio needs to get audiences interested in their creature IPs once more and to get more films made based on them.

The Las Vegas project is set to open in 2025, coinciding with their new proper theme park in Orlando called Epic Universe.

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Jake Gyllenhaal’s Thriller ‘Presumed Innocent’ Series Gets Early Release Date

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Jake gyllenhaal presumed innocent

Jake Gyllenhaal’s limited series Presumed Innocent is dropping on AppleTV+ on June 12 instead of June 14 as originally planned. The star, whose Road House reboot has brought mixed reviews on Amazon Prime, is embracing the small screen for the first time since his appearance on Homicide: Life on the Street in 1994.

Jake Gyllenhaal’s in ‘Presumed Innocent’

Presumed Innocent is being produced by David E. Kelley, J.J. Abrams’ Bad Robot, and Warner Bros. It is an adaptation of Scott Turow’s 1990 film in which Harrison Ford plays a lawyer doing double duty as an investigator looking for the murderer of his colleague.

These types of sexy thrillers were popular in the ’90s and usually contained twist endings. Here’s the trailer for the original:

According to Deadline, Presumed Innocent doesn’t stray far from the source material: “…the Presumed Innocent series will explore obsession, sex, politics and the power and limits of love as the accused fights to hold his family and marriage together.”

Up next for Gyllenhaal is the Guy Ritchie action movie titled In the Grey scheduled for release in January 2025.

Presumed Innocent is an eight-episode limited series set to stream on AppleTV+ starting June 12.

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