Horror Movie Review: Terror at Black Tree Forest (2021)

Not to be confused with the 2010 indie-slasher of the same name, although this could possibly be a remake or reimagining of that flick. Terror at Black Tree Forest comes from director Sam Mason-Bell, who co-wrote the story with Jackson Batchelor and Dustin Ferguson. It stars Cassandre Wallace, Will Jones, Amanda Bourne, Ella Palmer, Annabella Rich, Omar Mahmood Lagares, Max Pill, and Martin W. Payne.

A low-budget woods-based slasher, Terror at Black Tree Forest’s story is about a group of college friends who go camping in the woods. As night falls, they learn of the legend of Boris Drumpf, the last known survivor of the Terror at Black Tree Forest. It’s just a scary story, right? There’s no-one out there watching them, right?

Well, as anyone who has seen a film like this before knows, surviving until morning is going to be one hell of a challenge for these characters. Whereas staying engaged with this film is the challenge for the viewer.

Ok, that might be a little too mean, because overall, Terror at Black Tree Forest isn’t actually that bad, provided you go in with the right mindset. If you are expecting high quality visuals, sound, acting, effects, and storytelling, then you’re going to come away disappointed, Whereas, if you expect the opposite, Terror at Black Tree Forest will surprise you in some areas.

The most notable being the visuals as Terror at Black Tree Forest looks pretty good, and they did an excellent job of lighting night scenes in the woods. That might not sound like that big of a deal, but if you’ve seen your fair share of horrors that take place at night, you know how frustrating it can be to not see anything because of poor lighting.

Alongside that, the acting is solid, and everyone tries to inject as much life as possible into characters that really don’t have much to them. That’s no big deal though, it’s a slasher, and well-written characters are few and far between in this genre of horror.

Alas, the lack of creativity in the story is less forgivable though, as it treads a well-worn path, and doesn’t deviate in the slightest. Even up to the ‘twist’ reveal of who the watcher in the woods actually is. It’s not a good twist either, as it can be seen coming a mile away.

Worse than that though, Terror at Black Tree Forest borrows so much from the slashers old but drops much of the actual horror aspects. An inability to create believable and earnest tension, alongside a desire to not make this a gorefest, results in a dull watch for the most part. With the former, it doesn’t help that to try and force atmosphere where there is none, a really loud musical score has been laid over many scenes. It can be very distracting, especially as it quickly gets repetitive.

Terror at Black Tree Forest isn’t a good film, but there have certainly been far worse made in this style and with similar budgets. There is talent here, it just doesn’t shine brightly enough across the Terror at Black Tree Forest runtime.