Hidden In The Woods

Released by: Artsploitation Films
Released on: September 17, 2013.
Director: Patricio Valladares
Cast: Siboney Lo, Carolina Escobar, Daniel Antivilo, Jose Hernandez
Year: 2012
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The Movie:

Made in his native Chile by writer/director Patricio Valladares and based, at least partially, on true events, Hidden In The Woods introduces us to two young girls, Ana (Siboney Lo) and her younger sister Annie (Carolina Escobar). They live out in the middle of nowhere with their father (Daniel Antivilo), a horrible brute of a man who killed their mother and who makes a living as a middle man dealing coke to a gangster named Costello (Francois Soto). Not only are the girls abused mentally and physically, but sexually as well, and as they get older and their father's attacks become more frequent, Ana gives birth to a boy named Manuel (Jose Hernandez) who grows up to have some issues, the result of his inbreeding.

One day after the girls have been molested for the umpteenth time, Ana heads out into nearest road and screams for help. Though it doesn't appear at first that anyone heard her, soon enough two cops show up at the house. They find the girls and Manuel locked away in the back of the property and although they succeed in freeing them, the father hacks the two officers up with a chainsaw and then goes on the lam, eventually winding up in jail. The girls head to a remote cabin that they know of and try to make a go of it where Ana earns money giving head to strangers. It's hard going for the three of them, and Costello's men figure that they know where their father left the drugs he owed him, which means it's only going to get worse. Just when you think it can't get any nastier, two hikers show up with evil intentions…

This is a low budget gore fest that puts shock value over storytelling but if you want confrontational and in your face, this movie will fit the bill. It's a nasty, grubby little picture that makes good use of its rural Chilean locations to give the story a strong sense of hopelessness and desperation - fitting, when the plot more or less puts the three leads through Hell. Amazingly enough, the director basically duped the Chilean government into helping to fund the picture by omitting certain aspects of the production details when he pitched it to them. The odds of Valladares getting government funding again would seem to be slim to none, but at this point with a Hollywood remake in the works under his guidance, he's probably not too worried about that.

Getting back to the movie, the two lead actresses scream well enough. As stated, they're put through a constant cycle of abuse and as the story plays out and one menacing character after the next assaults them or uses them or takes advantage of them you'd have to be inhuman not to feel something for them. Their performances are decent enough, there's one moment where Ana is in bed with a customer and he wants to use his fingers on her. She refuses, and while she doesn't tell him exactly why, we know it's because of how her father would touch her when she was younger. This is one of too few moments of reflectiveness that give the movie some character development, but outside of a few spots like this, quieter moments, the movie just goes for the jugular. It's sensationalist and exploitative in literal terms, the camera leering over the buxom duo as they fight for their lives and wallowing in seriously depraved scenes of gore and carnage.

Strong stuff to be sure and impressive in its determination to push the envelope. Thought plot, however, jumps around a lot. The subplot with the gangsters does help to contain things to a certain respect, but at times it seems like Valladares is just stringing us along from one atrocity exhibition to the next. Had there been more care put into the actual storyline here, the admitted impressive scenes of nastiness would have had more impact and therefore more horror. As it stands, as an exploitation picture Hidden In The Woods works - it's gross, it's gory, it's nasty, it spits in the face of various taboos - but it doesn't quite succeed in delivering the lasting impact you want from it.

Video/Audio/Extras:

Hidden In The Woods is presented in 1.78.1 on this DVD from Artsploitation Films. This was shot on video with a modest budget and at times the shaky camera work employed in some of the scenes gets to be a bit much, but the picture quality itself is decent. Colors are a little blown out but this seems to have been an intentional choice on the part of Valladares and it does effectively convey the sort of hot and humid atmosphere that the movie plays out in. Obviously there's no print damage, and detail is reasonably strong here.

The Spanish language Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound track, which comes with optional English language subtitles, is quite good. There's a fair bit of rear channel action in the more intense scenes that helps to build atmosphere and which play around with the score in interesting ways. Again, this a low budget movie so despite the fact that there's a lot of chaos in the movie, it never envelops us the way a fancier mix might, but what's here sounds quite good. Dialogue is well balanced as are the effects. There are a few spots where subtitles fail to appear over a couple of sentences of the Spanish dialogue.

The main extra on the disc is a making of featurette that runs just over twenty-one minutes and which is shot fly-on-the-wall style offering us a look at the cast and crew doing their thing and at various scenes being shot, some of which are the nastier, gorier moments in the movie. What little formal dialogue there is here is subtitled from Spanish into English. A more formal structure might have been a better way to learn more about the director's intentions, but thankfully that's covered in the four minute interview with Valladares originally recorded for a Fantasia Festival screening. Here he speaks about the basic themes of the movie, his intent to shock, and how the Fantasia screening led to the opportunity to direct the English language remake.

Aside from that we get a trailer for the feature, a 'clap clip' (a three minute collection of a woman working the clapboard on the shoot), trailers for a few other Artsploitation releases, menus and chapter selection. Inside the keepcase is a full color booklet of liner notes from Travis Crawford that offer up some history of the movie and the controversy that surrounded a screening as well as a quick interview with the director (who is, at the time of this writing, working on a sequel for US audiences). The cover insert is also reversible, which is a nice touch.

The Final Word:

Hidden In The Woods is a nasty, mean spirited movie, the kind that rubs your face in its nastiness. The script jumps around a bit too much for its own good and there are times where you wish more had gone into the script than the shock value, but there's no denying that this one hits like a brick to the face. Artsploitation's DVD looks and sounds pretty good and contains some decent extras as well.