What Happens in the Woods (2019)

Several years ago I came across an announcement about a new indie horror film that was about to begin production. From the title alone, I knew the guys at Concept Media were onto something. Don’t Fuck in the Woods (DFITW) was a title that was unlike most titles in the indie scenery of the time. It was bold, “in your face” and to some, almost obscene. Some said it would break the movie, others that it was its ticket to success. I agreed with the latter. It took a while and with plenty of hardship, but Don’t Fuck in the Woods was completed. It was a festival success and the indie horror fans could not get enough of it. Critics were split on the film. It was, after all, a harsh-looking, low budget affair with less than familiar faces. As it generally is, and I’m aware of the irony, the critics’ opinion matters very little when the fans flock to see a film and it gets selected into festivals and wins awards. It was difficult to dispute. DFITW was a success. What happened within Concept Media on the way to making it, during, as well as after production was completed, is the subject of this documentary.

I’ll start by saying that there is something about this film that does not feel like a documentary at all. When I started watching, it felt like some kind of a promotional film more than a true documentary. A quick online search yielded the description of a documentary film as “a nonfictional motion picture intended to document reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction, education, or maintaining a historical record.” Previous talks with fellow filmmakers have surfaced somewhat different responses, notably regarding the impartiality of the people behind the camera and getting the point of view of two sides to a story. With What Happens in the Woods (WHITW), the feeling is that the creators of the film, Concept Media, or largely writer-director Shawn Burkett, have made a documentary about their own work, most notably, as previously mentioned, Shawn‘s own experience with his indie horror feature film Don’t Fuck in the Woods. Once I got that out of my system and came to terms with the fact that a documentary is not necessarily supposed to be about something set apart in some way from the filmmakers themselves, I decided to just sit my ass down and watch the film. I’m glad I did.

This film follows DFITW and the stories behind closed doors and Concept Media from as early as the conception stage. I will not spoil too much by saying that there were some misgivings about the title and the direction the film was about to take. Production was somewhat of a nightmare, but then again, most indie features tend to be that, at least to some extent. Such is the way of the world when you don’t have unlimited dollars to throw at every problem that comes at you out of nowhere. It then goes into the success that followed once the film was completed and the much-documented pirating explosion that came next and caused much heartache and potential (as well as actual) loss of earning.

Any way you look at this, WHITW is an interesting film. It is very informative, entertaining and educational for filmmakers, both aspiring and those already doing it for a living. It is also entertaining and interesting for anyone outside the industry, who can now get an inside look into indie productions and how things can go awesomely right and at the same time very, very wrong. Making an indie feature is a rollercoaster ride with several ups and downs and many people get lost in either direction. Shawn Burkett and Concept Media partner, Ryan Stacy, as well as the film’s star Brittany Blanton, along with others involved in the production, give us a candid look at how things went down from the beginning and even the lingering effects to this day. Especially with regard to inter-relationships at Concept Media and the online piracy issue.

While the information passed on to the viewer is great, there is a slight feeling that some of the interviews are too staged. The look of it is very sleek, the editing is smooth and as mentioned before, at some points it feels like a promotional video for either DFITW, Concept Media or WHITW. While the information seems extremely candid and honest, at some points it also feels a little rehearsed, which to me hurt the viewing experience, however slightly. On the other hand, the one testimony that absolutely got me came from Burkett himself and his criticism of the final product that is DFITW, his own film. I won’t spoil by revealing, but while it did raise the honesty level of the film for me, it also exposed a weakness in the film. I noticed that there were no noticeable interviews, at least none that I noticed, with critics who did not like, or negatively criticised the film. All had good things to say about DFITW, which I get the feeling was not a fully true picture of the reality of this story. I think that while the interviews with fans of the film were great, I would have liked to have seen a little bit of criticism of the film, even from some “haters”.

Let me set the record straight about WHITW, the positives far outweigh the negatives. My personal taste in documentaries might come into it, as this documentary is quite different to most. I was entertained from beginning to the end. I enjoyed the material and found it quite informative and most importantly, interesting. Overall, the content is raw, yet the look is polished and perhaps the dissonance between the two was a little jarring for me. While it seemed to be polished to the point of perhaps being “too produced”, I find it hard to completely fault the overall result of a film I truly enjoyed watching and would recommend to most people.

Should be taken both as cautionary tale and as inspiration. 7.5/10.