Critiquing The Devil Complex

The Devil Complex is a horror movie that takes place in Transylvania, Romania, home of Vlad the Impaler, or Dracula. However, this movie is not about Dracula. It's about something far more frightening, and far more real.

The Hoia Baciu Forest, the most haunted forest in the world, also known as The Bermuda Triangle of Transylvania, is a 55,000 year old forest where every year, people go in, and never come back out. This haunted forest is said to be a Hot Spot for paranormal activity. People will go in, and never come back out. Some people have said they went in, only to come out with unexplainable burns or rashes. Most people who go in say they feel a deep sense of dread and anxiety. Sometimes someone will get a terrible headache or feel nauseous. A lot of people who go in say that the second they feel a million invisible eyes on them, watching them intently.

There's the mysterious Center of the forest that is known for being a total dead zone where nothing grows. Scientists have conducted tests on the soil to see if there's any specific reason why nothing grows, but none of the tests showed anything to be out of the ordinary, and there's no known reason why nothing grows. The Center is said to be where most of the paranormal activity happens, and is thought to be a portal to another dimension. An alternate universe, so to speak.

The Hoia Baciu Forest is said to be known for over one thousand disappearances. However, despite all of my five days of research on Google, I found not one name, not one article, not one hint of anyone who went missing, except for three stories that have made this haunted forest infamous.

One of the disappearances, supposedly the first, and the one the forest got its name for, was a sheep herder who went in the forest with one hundred sheep. Neither him, nor any of his sheep were ever seen again. Bacu is the Romanian word for sheep herder, and thus The Hoia Baciu Forest got its name.

Another very famous disappearance that was talked about in every article on this forest that I read was a young girl who entered the forest and went missing, only to show up five years later in the exact same shape she was in. She hadn't aged a day, she was wearing the same clothes, and was in almost perfect condition.

The last disappearance I found, which was less talked about, was a girl simply known as The Bride-To-Be. She was, as the name suggests, a bride-to-be, who went into the forest with her fiance. They were walking together, only for the soon to be bride to fall behind. The groom didn't notice right away, but when he did, she was gone. He searched for her for days, but never found her. It's said that The Bride-To-Be can be seen wandering around the forest in a wedding dress. However, unlike the other malicious entities there, she is friendly. She's seen waving and smiling at children who enter the forest, and if she sees you as she walks along the edge of the forest, she'll smile at you, too.

However, despite this kind spirit, The Hoia Baciu Forest is not a force to be reckoned with. The natives say that this forest can see into your soul and see your past, your present, your needs, your wants. It can hear every thought that runs through your mind. It sees into your soul, and it judges you. Once it judges you, this forest decides whether you live or die. It begins with showing you why it's killing you, and then it slaughters you deep in the forest, and you're never seen again.

The Hoia Baciu Forest is the most haunted forest in the entire world and, I don't know about you, but I wouldn't be jumping at the opportunity to go there.

Now that you know everything there is to know about the Hoia Baciu Forest, let's get to the critiquing!

The movie starts out with a college professor recording himself explaining everything that led up to all the horrifying events that happened in the movie. His student, Rachel Kusza, was fascinated with the Hoia Baciu Forest, and was making a film for her college course with the professor about it.

However, she never came back from Transylvania. In fact, she was never seen or heard from again. Feeling responsible for her disappearance, her professor went looking for her in the Hoia Baciu Forest. He explained that the forest could see in your soul and judges you. He called that The Devil Complex. He then proceeds to say he didn't know why it let him live.

He says he didn't find Rachel Kusza while desperately searching for her, but instead found the film she had left behind when she disappeared. He then went on to elaborate on what he saw on the film. He saw exactly what happened to her.

He saw her die.

After he finishes with everything he wanted to say for the world to hear, he shoots himself in the head.

This gives the movie a very ominous, horrorish start, and definitely sets the tone for the rest of the movie, giving you a sense of dread from the very beginning. This detail of the movie was what initially had me hooked, and was what kept me intruiged throughout the rest of the movie, despite the slowness of the movies plot progression.

The movie then cuts to the camera and sound men that Rachel hired to film the events that transpired. While they sit in the car and wait, they talk about things too pointless to remember, until Rachel pops up in their window, knocking on it and scaring them half to death. When they open the window for her, she tells them to meet her in the village at the bottom of the hill.

Once at the bottom of the hill, they start interviewing the locals, asking them what they believe about the forest that lies just a few kilometers away from them.

The first girl they talk to tells them that she herself has never been to the forest, but her sister has. She returned with rashes and burns all over her, and has never been the same since. Throughout the entire time she was talking, you could see the sense of dread on her face, and you could tell that she really didn't want to be answering Rachel's question.

This detail in the movie is another great tone-setter, and the acting made it so believable, and it seemed so real that I almost forgot I was watching a reenactment and not the actual films that were found. There are little things in the movie that set the mood, and make the movie worth watching until the end. While the movie is agonizingly slow, there are particular things in the movie that make it interesting enough to keep watching, waiting for the action to start.

The rest of the time interviewing the locals is boring, and not really worth mentioning. It's a part of the movie that I wanted to skip past to get to the 'Good Part' of it. In this sequence of the movie, you don't learn any other important details of the forest, and all you really get is whether or not people believe the stories are real. It was boring and hard to watch, but I was still intrigued after the professors scene, and the girl whose sister came back from the forest alive. Even though this specific part of the film was boring, I still wanted to know what happened next.

Once the (agonizingly long) interviews with the locals were over, the team of three finally went to the forest, waiting for their guide to arrive. However, before he arrives, Rachel tells another native who their guide is, and you learn something more on the disturbing side about him.

Supposedly, their guide was known around town as a wife-beater, and for essentially murdering his wife. While he did not actually murder his wife, he was responsible for it happening. He beat his wife, and after he did, she went into the Hoia Baciu Forest and never returned. One can only assume from the stories that she died.

Once they enter the forest, it's nothing but fighting and bickering. I truthfully think that a lot of this movie could have been left out, but if it was, it wouldn't be a full length movie. However, this part of the movie was so painfully boring, that I was debating just turning it off and finding something else.  But, I still wanted to know what happened to them, and knew that something big was going to happen at some point in time. Just...not at that specific time...

About thirty, thirty five minutes into the movie, it starts to get interesting. Their guide sees a hole in the ground next to a tree, and he runs to it and starts bawling and praying. This definitely got me interested in what was going to happen next. Even though not much of the movie had any redeeming qualities at the beginning of it, it was finally starting to get good, and I was, once again, hooked.

But let's talk about why that part got me hooked. Was it because of the seemingly randomness of it? Was it creepy? Was it disturbing? Yes, yes, and yes. The randomness of the sudden panic was enough to get me interested again because, up to that point, nothing had happened. But then, all of a sudden, the guide started to freak out, running to a random hole, fell to his hands and knees, and started praying. And this guy didn't really seem like the religious type. So the fact that it was so random and sudden certainly got me interested again.

As for the creepy factor? Let's go to the scale. And the scale says......TEN! That part of the movie was extremely creepy. Not only because of what he was doing, but also because he was completely catatonic, not responding to anything they said. Why? Why would he be that way? I'll get to my assumption on that in a second.

Disturbing? That's where my take on why he was doing all this creepy behaviour comes in. This man, who had previously been so stoic and silent unless spoken to, had a complete breakdown, and no one knows why. But here's why I think it happened. Remember earlier when I talked about the whole wife beating thing? Remember earlier when I said his wife went into the Hoia Baciu Forest herself? Remember what I said about her never coming back? Well here's what I think his freak-out moment was all about. His wife. She went missing, right? Everyone thinks she died, right? Well what if she did? What if she died in that exact spot? The Hoia Baciu Forest judges you. It shows you why it's going to kill you before it does. So maybe this forest was showing him his dead wife's grotesque body. Maybe the forest was showing him why he was going to die, and that reason why was because of his wife.

But if that was the case, then why couldn't the others see her body? Well, she was already dead. What would you do if you saw a dead body in a haunted forest? You would book it outta there so fast. At least, I would. So maybe the forest wanted only their guide to see his wife so the others weren't scared away. It wanted to keep them there, so it only showed him the dead body.

Of course, this is only a theory, and it's not based on facts. However, it's the only somewhat logical explanation I could come up with as to why he would freak out, pray hysterically and, oh yea, run away screaming and stumbling over his own feet. There's not a lot of logic in this movie, as there is no 'logical' explanation for the stories of the forest, but it would make sense that that might be what happened. Creepy much?

So then after their guide disappears, the three are left wandering, alone and lost, in the middle of the most haunted forest in the world. Well, crap. Nothing really remarkable happens until they find their guide......

......Dead, with his neck split open, with a heart with an 'X' over it painted in blood on the tree above his body. And that's where things start to get really interesting.

I don't want to spoil the rest of the movie for you, so I'll end with a little rundown of what I thought of the movie.

So, all in all, it's not necessarily a bad movie, but it's also not really that good. Truth be told, it could have been much better. It was slow, and for the first half, very boring. I was hooked on it for a while, but as it progressed, it became hard to watch. Even after interesting things started to happen, it still didn't get to be actually interesting until the very end of the movie.

I don't really have much to say in the way of interpretation of the movie because as far as it goes, with the exception of the one scene with the guide, it's a pretty straightforward movie. It doesn't make you think the way I like my horror movies to do. It doesn't really have many redeeming qualities, and it's not really an astounding movie.

So, if I were to recommend this movie, it would be only as a last resort horror movie. The only thing this movie really did for me was get me to be obsessively interested in the Hoia Baciu Forest itself, which ended up in a lot of paranoia at some of the things I found. Other than my interest in not the movie itself, but the location the movie took place in, I don't really have a lot of positive feedback on this story. It wasn't very good, and only got actually intriguing in the last fifteen, twenty minutes.

So would I recommend this movie? No. If you want to watch a horror movie, I would strongly suggest finding a different one with more plot, more character development, and one that's more interesting.

That's all for this critique! Goodbye, my lovelies! Remember, if you have a request on something you want me to make a post about, you can email me at kitty.kat.kritiques@gmail.com.

I love you all!