The Redwood Massacre is a Scottish take on the Friday the 13th series of movies. Regrettably this horror flick does not live up to expectations, its a truly dismal affair, that could have succeeded with more careful handling.

This film would have worked much better without the grotesque and unnecessarily gratuitous use of violence.It would have benefited too, from gradually ratcheting up the tension, before introducing the serial killer. Indeed, putting aside the gore factor, the chief reason why this film is such a flop, is it lacks the "jump in your seat factor", found in its US counterpart.

The acting from this films cast does it no favours either. Its not bad as such, its just rather flat. Indeed, the main characters seem bored by the whole affair. Its almost a relief when some of them get bumped off.

All in all, the idea behind this film is a good one, that taps into a well established horror genre. The story's not terrible, nor is the setting. Sadly, everything else is. Three out of ten from me.

The title pretty much tells the story, there are some killings in the wood and that's pretty much it. This so called massacre is presented by the antagonist whose blows are powerful enough to make a fountain of blood from any victim he meets. While hemorrhaging is no joke, it seems everyone has tendency to squirt liters of blood from the slightest touch. The excessively low budget gore is occasionally creepy, but mostly ironically ridiculous. Nevertheless, it has at least a little entertainment value.

A group of people go to a forest and meet with gruesome fate. Honestly, no one in the group is even remotely likable. Either they suddenly encounter the threat and proceed to usual frantic screaming, or the movie invests too much time on shallow characters. One particular female is so hostile, her entire dialogues consist of argument. This is very bizarre, especially when she still argues in the moments where her survival is at stake. At some points I thought she might just debate with the villain.

Other characters are overzealous, lacking logic or too meek. None of them feel as though they are genuinely facing authentic dangerous scenario with the villain gradually approaching. Scenes are poorly done, mainly because the editing is choppy. Almost the entire time the characters are shown standing randomly and awkwardly delivering the lines. Furthermore, it feels the screenplay misses a couple of scenes or lacking consistency, but audience probably wouldn't lose much anyway.

The effect is laughably over-the-top. Expect too much cheap blood spewed on the screen. It really doesn't matter what the cause is, these people will bleed. It only takes a simple jab and one of them starts to vomit blood until their hair and clothes are covered with it. This silly execution might just serendipitously work in in their favor as comedy effect.

The Redwood Massacre is unoriginal and shallow, even to the point of unintentionally funny, but the rigid slasher premise or silly antic might just deliver a few chuckles.

A bunch of campers run afoul of a brutal killer (hulking Benjamin Selway) in the woods.

Writer/director David Ryan Smith relates the familiar, but still enjoyable story at a brisk pace, maintains an unsparingly harsh'n'gritty tone throughout, makes good use of the backwoods setting, delivers oodles of unflinchingly nasty and graphic in-your-face blood-spitting gore, and stages the ferocious murder set pieces with considerable sadistic aplomb. Moreover, the hooded psycho is both creepy and vicious in equal measure. However, this movie does suffer a bit from unlikeable and underdeveloped characters as well as a serious lack of tension. A worthy slice'n'dice flick.