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THE RETURN OF THE FOREST MONSTER

By Dr. Rhonda Baughman | January 3, 2004

The Labatt Blue ran out, and I had no access to heroin, but I still had a good time with this one. It’s obvious that the folks in this film did, too, and the script appears to be mostly ad-libbed. However, I’ll give credit where it’s due: the opening sequences just might be one of the funniest I have ever seen in a low-budget, we-shot-this-in-the-woods-behind-my-house film. No one wants to be taken seriously in this film and it works – just plain fun that probably would have been better had 40 minutes been shaved off … most likely though, it’s a student film for a class on ‘political injustice and the media.’

People go camping and a forest monster pops up, eats a guy named Dave. The forest monster is really just a guy in a cloak with some fur glued to his face, and I think he was wearing Nautica shorts. Doesn’t matter, though, Vance Kotria is cute, probably knows it, and some folks in the film got to jump from a cliff, banter wittily, and run around. A lot. And what do you know? The survivors of the initial attack just can’t seem to get the juice they need to live life on the edge and they return to diddle with the monster. Oddly enough, too – the ending works. Like, it makes sense and the film doesn’t just end. Which is more than I can say for some of the stuff I’ve seen recently.

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