Blackwoods (2002) and the Use of the Woods as a Movie Location

There is a saying in the real estate world that it is all about “location, location, location.”  This statement is one of the truest statements in all of business.  If you’re trying to sell a house, you want it to be in a good neighborhood.  It needs to be safe, have respectable schools, and be near enough to shopping and entertainment that people can buy groceries and entertain themselves.  If you’re opening a business, you want it to be somewhere that people will notice it and want to stop to visit your establishment.  You don’t want it to be out of the way and make people look for it.  They probably won’t and your business will fail.  Location is important for sales.  It can make the difference between success and failure.

Location is also an important quality for the movie industry.  It is a visual medium, so a location is necessary in order to have something for the audience to look at.  I don’t mean a theater for them to watch the movie in.  That’s important, but the location in which the movie is shot is the image that the audience will see.  A filmmaker wants to find the best location for the viewers to look at.  They want to find a location that will keep audiences invested in the movie.  They also want a location that is cheap to film in.  The two factors get debated and compared, fluctuating in how persuasive they are upon the movie.  If a movie has a large budget (for example, a James Bond film), the filmmaker might utilize exotic locations to film on site, or have elaborate sets created for the action.  When a movie has a lower budget, as do many of the bad movies I watch, the filmmaker tends to resort to cheaper locations in which they can shoot the movie.  The director might use a buddy’s house, or even his own.  The crew might find an empty street and quickly assemble a shoot.  Or, in many cases, they will opt to film large chunks of the movie in the woods.

There are more reasons than money that someone might choose to film their movie in the woods.  But let’s first take a look at why it is an inexpensive location choice.  The number one reason is that a filmmaker tends to not need permits to film in the woods.  There is no paperwork, no payment, and no outsiders supervising the shoot.  You are free to film for as long as you want without having to pay extra for being there longer, or pay people who are displaced from their workplace while you shoot.  That’s the basic nature of shooting in the woods.  It’s free.

Another thing about filming in the woods is that, depending on the size and the natural features of the area, it could end up working as multiple sub-locations.  Different areas of the woods have the ability of providing different visuals.  The various types of trees that grow there would look different from one another.  There may be hills, streams, rocks, clearings, caves, and other things that could make for interesting backdrops to the action occurring onscreen.  The location could even factor into the action itself, becoming as important as the characters in what is happening.  There is enough variation in the different areas of the woods to keep a movie visually interesting even when it is primarily set in the woods.

The final reason, and one that I have been privy to throughout the many low-budget and many bad movies that I have seen is that the woods can give a spooky or eerie tone to the movie.  As much as a wooded area can be a beautiful place to visit and explore, it can also be a fairly easy place to get lost.  Many people have an itching feeling that they will lose themselves in the woods and not be able to find their way out. (Sidenote: I believe that this fear may come from the story of Hansel and Gretel, in which the two children get lost in the woods because the breadcrumb trail they leave behind gets eaten.  It gets told to children, so from a young age, we have that little bit of fear about never finding a way out of the woods and the potential dangers of what may be in there.  The witch.  Anyway, that’s another topic for another time.)  I said before that there are many parts of the woods that can look different.  I still stand by that assessment.  However, trees are still trees.  The rocks, streams, and other things are still surrounded by trees.  When all you see is trees for as far as you can see in any direction, how similar or different they look does not matter.  You want a way out, but you cannot see one.  Just that sense of being forever lost can give a movie a sense of dread.  And that’s before there’s a villain chasing the protagonist through the woods.  If someone or something is chasing after you through the woods, and you can’t see them or a way out because of all of the foliage, you’ll be more scared than simply being lost in the woods.  That’s why lower budget movies, namely horror, commonly resort to the woods and cabins in the woods.

Blackwoods is a 2001 Uwe Boll movie that takes the woods concept and runs with it.  The title comes from the nickname that the characters in the movie give to the woods that are a primary feature.  Because there are so many trees, it becomes impossible to see through the woods in the dark.  It ends up being pitch black. (This is a false statement perpetuated by the characters) Hence the name Blackwoods.  The movie adds the various tropes that could be associated with the woods in movies.  There ends up being a lone house in the woods (cabin in the woods) with a backwoods family that ends up chasing after the protagonist (villain chase for tension).  There are rocks and trees that change the look of the location, but the main character runs through endless trees seeking help and finding despair.  Add in that any road he sees is surrounded by trees as far as the eye can see and you have the perfect elements for a movie set in the woods.  The editing kills any of the suspense brought on by the setting.  It also neuters any of the interesting twists and turns.  The setting was still the right choice; however, the filmmaking talents of Uwe Boll took away from the potential the setting provided.

This week’s Sunday “Bad” Movie isn’t the only movie I have covered that has been set in the woods.  Blackwoods is one of many.  The most notable of the other movies would be the Anaconda franchise.  The first two are actually set in the jungle, sure, but that’s only a minor difference.  The jungle is still a place full of trees that shares the same general features with the woods.  The villain in this case tends to be twofold.  There will be a human antagonist who doesn’t take advantage of the wooded surroundings.  He or she instead tags along with the main group, only to turn on them in the end.  The villain that chases the main characters through the woods is actually the anaconda(s) that the titles reference.  They are able to hide well by blending into their surroundings such as the trees and shrubbery, as well as any other debris.  The main group of characters have trouble escaping from the snakes because of trees that span for miles in every direction.  The franchise is another classic example of why wooded areas make a great choice for a horror setting.  The endless trees and the unknown whereabouts of the snake around them build up the tension.  This is a big plus for a series of movies that don’t tend to do so well on the writing side of things.

There are other locations like houses and warehouses that can be useful and cheap for filmmakers with lower budgets but many people tend to come back to the woods for their inspiration.  Between the cheap cost, the look, and the mood that it brings, the woods can provide the perfect backdrop for a movie.  Plus, it gets you back into the great outdoors.  That’s good too.  The woods are a location with many uses and functions (though uses and functions might be the same thing).  They can make for beautiful scenery or provide some necessary tension.  It’s a location that can give great results if utilized properly.  As is any location, really.  If a location is used well, it can make for great cinema.  If it is not used well, it can make for a bad movie.  Many times the result is in between.  And that’s just movies for you.

Now it’s time for some notes:

• Blackwoods was one of the many suggested movies for the Sunday “Bad” Movies.  It was suggested by @SebastianNebel.
• As I said in the post, Uwe Boll was the director.  He was previously featured in the Sunday “Bad” Movies as the director of House of the Dead.  That movie also featured four actors from Blackwoods: Michael Eklund, Clint Howard, Ben Derrick, and Will Sanderson.
• Another actor in Blackwoods who was in a different Sunday “Bad” Movie is Matthew Walker, who was in New Year’s Eve.
• I mentioned Anaconda in this week’s post.
• I mentioned the story of Hansel and Gretel.  I have covered a movie called Hansel and Gretel Get Baked.
• Other movies I’ve covered with wooded settings include Backwoods Bloodbath, Friday the 13^th Part V, and A Talking Cat!?!.
• What are some movies set in the woods that you like?  What movies used the woods properly?  Have you seen Blackwoods?  Did you like Blackwoods? Have you seen anything from Uwe Boll?  There’s a comments section so that you can talk about any of this stuff that you want.
• Do you have any movies you would like to suggest for the Sunday “Bad” Movies?  There are three ways to suggest them.  One, you can put the suggestion in the comments.  Two, you could email it to sundaybadmovies@gmail.com.  Third, you can tell me on Twitter.
• Next week’s movie is a movie called 7 Deadly Sins.  I don’t know much about it.  I’m about to watch it.  You’ll hear about my thoughts next week.  Come back for those.  See you then.

The Hero of Color City (2014)

When I schedule the Sunday “Bad” Movies, I tend to leave two or three weeks out of every twenty-five without a set movie.  These weeks are the ones where I want to choose something fairly new to watch.  As the week approaches, I start looking through the listings of blu-ray releases for something that stands out.  It could be a ridiculous title that makes me think the movie will end up being terrible (30 Nights of Paranormal Activity with the Devil Inside the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo).  Maybe the movie has already gained a reputation of being bad (Winter’s Tale).  Sometimes the synopsis can help me to find a newer “bad” movie to watch (Bermuda Tentacles).  In many of the cases, it works out.  I manage to find a bad movie that fits into the overall feel of this blog.  But every once in a while, I add a movie, watch it, then contemplate whether or not the movie was actually bad.  This was one of those weeks.

The Hero of Color City is a movie that I have been thinking about since I saw it a few days ago.  I chose the movie for the Sunday “Bad” Movies because of what the cover art looked like on the blu-ray.  And really, the cover art is representative of the movie on a surface level.  The Hero of Color City is, in fact, about a group of crayons that save their home of Color City.  The cast that was mentioned on the cover art was part of the cast of the movie.  The animation wasn’t the greatest, but it was passable.  All of these things were realized through looking at the cover.  However, the movie was much more than the simple animated movie I had assumed I was going to watch.

There is an unexpected depth to The Hero of Color City that I was not expecting.  I went into it expecting a simple adventure story geared towards children.  The movie, though still fairly straight-forward, was not that.  The main character, Yellow (yes, the yellow crayon from the box of crayons, voiced by Christina Ricci) is afraid of monsters.  Her fear of monsters ended up causing one to come to Color City.  Now she must face her fears to save the friends that she put in danger.  Through facing her fears, she and her companions for the adventure learn about kindness and acceptance from the characters that they meet while on their journey.  The depth of the movie shines in these aspects, showing children that everyone should be treated nicely and that you should not ostracize or be afraid of people based solely on their appearance.  I approve of this message that is meant to make the world a better, friendlier place, one child at a time.

I have mentioned children a lot already during this post.  There is a reason for that.  Although I liked The Hero of Color City quite a bit, it is still a movie made for children.  It does not have as much of a mature bent to it as a Pixar or Dreamworks movie does.  This is a kids movie through and through.  From the message to the character designs to the concept that these are crayons on an adventure, this movie is aimed at children.  It isn’t trying to play to an adult audience.  Nor does it even need to try.  It is for kids.  Director Frank Gladstone and the four credited writers knew that it was for kids, so they tried to make it as entertaining for children as they could.  For the most part, they succeeded.

The story of The Hero of Color City can be divided into three main components.  The first is a Toy Story style beginning and end.  Much like in the classic Pixar franchise, the characters that we follow throughout the majority of the film only come to life when the humans are not paying attention.  I thought that was going to be a focus throughout the entire movie.  However, it is only used as a bookending device and another looming time constraint for the characters.  The second part is the Color City action.  Most of this portion involves the antagonist, the king, following Yellow to the city and attacking it.  There’s also a celebration near the end of the movie.  These two bits help to build up the characters that you follow throughout the third portion.  The adventure itself is the third important part in what makes The Hero of Color City into the movie that it is.  The six characters that are sent to prevent the king from taking away their colour have distinct enough personalities to play off of each other in an entertaining manner.  The adventure takes them through different, intriguing locations (though there could have been more) that make for interesting detours on the way to the final destination.  They also encounter characters who help them learn about acceptance and kindness.  It is the bulk of the movie and holds its own as an entertaining watch.

I would start wrapping things up here but there is one more thing that I feel I must make note of.  During the end credits of The Hero of Color City, we go back to a few of the characters from the movie.  They have an important message to relay to the viewers about recycling crayons for other children to use.  Never before have I heard about a program that was set up to share crayons.  This extra scene (which feels tacked on, but why wouldn’t it?) taught me about the program.  If it helps children to become creative, that’s a great thing to include.  I wouldn’t say the scene was good, but the intention was, so I can forgive them.  The world could always use more creativity.

The Hero of Color City is not a great movie; however, there is enough good in it that I almost regret putting it in the Sunday “Bad” Movies.  I wouldn’t have seen it otherwise though, so I’m sort of happy about it being included too.  I just don’t believe it was that bad.  Who knows if anyone else agrees with me about that?  I may see a fun adventure with decent voice acting, interesting enough visuals, and a good lesson for kids.  Other people might just see a terrible stinker.  I have been known to like bad movies.  Whatever the case, I do believe that The Hero of Color City is worth checking out.  And that’s all that matters to me.

The only thing left is a bunch of notes:

• Movies I mentioned off the top were 30 Nights of Paranormal Activity with the Devil Inside the Girl withthe Dragon Tattoo, Winter’s Tale, and Bermuda Tentacles.
• Other animated movies I’ve covered are A Car’s Life, Tappy Toes, Jonah: A Veggietales Movie, and Roxanne’s Best Christmas Ever.  Attack of the Super Monsters also had many animated portions.
• Wayne Brady did some voice work in The Hero of Color City.  He was also in the movie Crossover.
• Another actor from The Hero of Color City, David Kaye, has been featured previously in the Sunday “Bad” Movies.  He was in Superbabies: Baby Geniuses 2.
• That’s not all, though.  Owen Wilson voiced a dragon in The Hero of Color City.  Before that, he was in Anaconda.
• And finally we get to Jessica Capshaw, the daughter of Kate Capshaw.  She voiced a character in The Hero of Color City.  She was previously featured in the movie View from the Top.
• Have you seen The Hero of Color City? Had you even heard of it before I said anything about it?  What do you think about it?  What do you think about sharing crayons?  You can talk about this kind of stuff in the comments.
• I don’t know if it’s up or not already, but I’m putting together a post about the ten movies from weeks 51-100 that I think perfectly define the Sunday “Bad” Movies.  It’s going to be a belated January end bonus post.  I did this with the first 50 weeks as well.  I’ll list the ten movies with something about them and why I believe they help define the Sunday “Bad” Movies.  So, hopefully that’s up already.  If not, it’ll be up soon.
• Next week’s movie is Blackwoods.  For some reason, I thought next week was 7 Deadly Sins, but that’s the week after.  Next week is Blackwoods.  Haven’t watched it as of the time I’m finishing writing this post, so I have no initial impressions yet.  We’ll see what I think of it next week.  More Uwe Boll.  Yay!