By MICHAEL GINGOLD
Seeking out scary stories backfires for the characters in the upcoming horror-suspense film.
Freestyle Digital Media has announced its acquisition of North American rights to RED WOODS, which will be available to rent and own on digital HD Internet, cable and satellite platforms February 5 and on Blu-ray February 9. Written and directed by Nicholas Danko, it stars Michael Barnett, Brian E. Stead, Jacquelynn Ware, Justin Rose, Jennifer Milligan, Michael Cruse and Stephanie Swift. The synopsis: “RED WOODS follows a group of urban explorers who gather in Pennsylvania’s Redstone County Forest to capture footage of abandoned houses and tell their stories. But these ‘house chasers’ get more than they bargained for when, after a series of grisly discoveries, they become the subjects of a different kind of story…one in which they are the ones being chased. Trapped in a swath of woods so remote there’s only one way in or out, they quickly discover there is evil in their midst. One among them has devised an insidious plot to construct a tale of terror using his victims’ own footage–and their fates will lie at the whim of his deadly game. With cameras rolling, they must navigate a killer’s ‘playground’ of destruction, because their escape is not part of his script. With its genre-bending approach, RED WOODS delivers a fresh take on modern horror.”
“It’s a story inspired by the thrill and intrigue of exploring the decaying and the abandoned,” Danko says. “Documenting these spooky old houses, there’s always that spine-tingling thought of ‘What if this place isn’t abandoned?’ or ‘Uh-oh…what if these woods aren’t abandoned?…Well, let’s keep our cameras rolling just in case something terrifying happens.”