It happens that the films on which you pin your hopes are, to put it mildly, not as good as we would like, and it happens that it seems that passing work surprises, if not originality, then professionalism. In fact, who would expect anything special from the Tree Demon? We've seen these demons in movies a hundred times. And when the director of a low-budget film is taken up, so expect trouble - or cheap special effects will disgust you from watching or vice versa, endless chatter.
In fact, the “Tree Demon” is an interesting story with environmental overtones about a certain keeper of forests. The monster attacking people is not a hungry monster with a half-open mouth from which saliva flows. The forest is his home, which must be saved from people for whom nothing remains sacred in the XXI century.
Patrick Rea for a long time made horror films that no one paid attention to. The Tree Demon was translated, perhaps through the participation of two representatives of charismatic acting dynasties. Jake Busey is no longer young, his father, a musician, literally grew up on the set. But the red-haired beauty Fiona dad Brad hardly took with him. Durif was married twice and divorced both times, although he maintained good relations with his children. Fiona was a producer on television, but gradually began to appear in movies as an actress. She plays mainly in horror, which is even good – she easily manages to give life to the most primitive characters. So in “Tree Demon” she has to shake with fear, sitting in a tent, while a monster walks outside, playing with hapless tourists.
The youngest daughter Fiona looks like her father, she is able to attract the eye not only with her spectacular appearance, but also with her organic existence in the frame, so you forget that this is only a movie. Director Fiona and undress was embarrassed - she is good in clothes - but the animal does not show for a long time. And then, I remember, walked one winged around the bus and very in vain Face stuck there, prematurely opening his face.
Patrick Rea, who shot a bunch of films, unknown crafts for a boring evening in the company of TV and a can of beer, suddenly proved to be a good horror maker. He knows how to create an atmosphere, the heroes do not talk nonsense in order to score timekeeping with something. On the contrary, the action is smooth, leading to a romantic trip to nature, where the characters met a company that loves to shoot in the woods. And if you ask why the Tree Demon does not like people, the director will show you.
Perhaps only Dora knows how to use macro photography with such love. Bugs, worms, ants, leaves, beautifully falling to the ground. And there's garbage, forgotten tents, an extinct fire of branches, sawed trees. If the god of Adam and Eve drove out of paradise and put angels there to watch over Eden, what do you want from the spirit of Indian legends? He's the flesh of the woods, a living tree like Ent that protects those who live in the woods. People from ancient times possessively treated the forest - shot there, cut, sawed, burned and uprooted. One destroyed anthill is more important to the demon than human lives – no one invited people to the forest. Nature, as in Larry Fesenden’s films, protects itself. Creatures living in the forest have no other home, and therefore the guardian of the forest closely monitors the order.
Patrick Rea’s film is good without any irony, because it appeals not to base instincts, but to the conscience of people who destroy the world in which they live. Let the author failed to compete with the brilliant film of John Jost “The Bed in which you sleep”, but he created a thriller about the retribution of nature for the damage caused. Therefore, his film will be perceived with sympathy by those viewers who love nature, beautiful Fiona and just a movie with meaning, even if it dresses up in the clothes of a low-budget spectacle.
6.5 out of 10