The Barrens Movie Review 353

The Barrens is a 2012 horror movie directed by Darren Lynn Bousman(Saw2,3,4) and starring Stephen Moyer(True Blood) and Mia Kirshner(The L Word).

Richard Vineyard(Moyer) and his wife Cynthia(Kirshner) are going on a camping trip with their son Danny and Sadie(Allie MacDonald). Sadie is resentful of Cynthia as she is her step mother and she does not want her to replace her real mother. They are going to The Barrens in New Jersey. It s a forest and Richard wants to totally get away from any distractions.  They arrive at their camping site  to find that there are too many other people there with noise and nonsense. Richard is having flashbacks to something that happened him when he used to come there as a child camping. The campers are talking about the legend of The Jersey Devil who is supposedly a child of Satan and they say that he haunts the woods. Animals turn up mutilated and Richard is not impressed with these stories.

Richard begins to have a meltdown and he is having nightmares and seeing things. He becomes convinced that they should get away from the camp sire and he leads his family deep into the woods. Cynthia is getting worried about his erratic behaviour. They discover a dead dog and Richard goes to bury it. Richard begins to look sick and he is weak. He saw the Jersey Devil when he was young child and it is haunting him.
He goes mad and Cynthia wants to get the children away from him as she is afraid that he will hurt them.
He was bitten by a dog with rabies and he has lost the plot.

The rest of the film consists of Richard acting strangely and menacingly. The movie ends with the appearance of The Jersey Devil. It proves that Richard was right. The Sheriff shows up and shoots Richard. The Jersey Devil kills him and then turns on the rest of the family. This was an okay movie. I didn't love it or hate it. It is middle of the road. The plot was interesting at the start, but it just didn't grab my attention and I knew how it was all going to end. If you enjoy monster movies, then maybe this is for you. I wouldn't watch it again.
It gets a 4/10.