Lifetime Review: 'Secrets in the Woods'

After dating him for three months, Sandra (Brittany Underwood) is excited to join her boyfriend Brant (Taylor Frey) for a weekend at the mountain cabin where he grew up. But just as she and Brant are beginning to enjoy their alone time, strange events frighten Sandra and convince her that someone's watching them. While Brant convinces Sandra she's overreacting and letting the forest play mind tricks on her, her fears are confirmed when she spots a figure outside the cabin.

Her attempt to flee resorts in Sandra being knocked out, and she wakes up to a horrifying discovery: the figure was Brant's father Langley (Jim Klock), who Brant had enlisted to find a woman to replace his late wife. Now held captive at the cabin and forced to obey Langley's orders, Sandra fears for her life as her first wilderness vacation becomes a fight for her freedom.

After their last Lifetime offering turned out to be a stale dud, The Ninth House had a lot riding on Secrets in the Woods for me. Thankfully, this forest-set hostage thriller not only blew Psycho Sister-in-Law out of the water, but additionally proves to be a cut above Ninth House's other serviceable-if-not-formulaic features. With a tension-rife premise, Secrets in the Woods had a lot of potential that writer Michael Shear utilizes well. Thanks to his efforts and those of the rest of the cast and crew, the film makes for an intense watch sure to keep your eyes glued to the screen once the action starts rolling.

Though admittedly, to get to that action, you have to wait through the film's needlessly extended opening act. It takes 40 minutes before we get into the captivity drama of Secrets in the Woods, and until then, we're treated to meandering scenes of Sandra and Brant's cabin expedition and the frightening events there that plague Sandra. It feels like the time spent on this buildup could've been significantly trimmed down, thus allowing the movie to get to the juicier drama quicker. But once Sandra finds out the truth about her boyfriend and their weekend getaway, Secrets in the Woods takes off running with its story and is aided by its primary cast in making up for the time lost on the slogging build-up.

Starting with our lead heroine, Brittany Underwood brings a sweet charm to Sandra. Some may find themselves frustrated with Sandra's overly trusting nature with Brant (given how they've only dated for three months and she's already agreeing to go out to the remote wilderness with him) and her quick dismissal of the odd goings-on at the cabin--both of which factor into her inevitable abduction. But the script avoids making Sandra unforgivably naive by giving her a sense of cunning and brute determination to escape her captors, and before that, Underwood perfectly taps into Sandra's emotions as she becomes trapped in the forest with a bleak future ahead of her. Meanwhile, Jim Klock transforms Langley into a truly repulsive monster, especially as more parts of his nightmarish backstory is revealed. Klock delivers all his dialogue with perfectly cutting malice, making it easy to loathe Langley and root for Sandra to escape his perverted grasp.

Taylor Frey aligns with Klock's energy in making Brant an equally despicable antagonist. At the same time, though, Frey works with the script as Secrets in the Woods makes Brant a more complex character than I thought he'd be. My initial thoughts were that Brant would be a reluctant accomplice being forced to follow his abusive father's demented orders (similar to the dynamic between Shawn and Tyler in A Deadly Price for Her Pretty Face). While there are enough scenes indicating such a scenario, the script and Frey come together to paint Brant with nuance. While it's clear that Langley is a horrible father to Brant and that Brant has suffered because of him, Frey allows us to see that Brant is far from the innocent victim he claims to be. There are plenty of scenes where Brant replicates his father's disgusting tendencies with Sandra, and moments when he appears comfortably complicit with Langley's goal of keeping Sandra as his replacement wife. It's some nice character writing that deviates from the usual format and keeps you wondering: is Brant just as twisted as Langley, or has he simply been warped from a lifetime living under such a cruel man?

Tying together the primary cast is Kabby Borders as Sandra's sister Becky and Mike Capozzi as local gas station owner Carl. Compared to Sandra, Becky is a far less compelling character, being introduced as something of a vapid airhead. But while this unsavory characterization continues throughout a lot of the movie, Borders gives a likable allure that keeps her from becoming annoying. Even as Becky is left a moderately flat character by her lack of screentime, Borders does what she can with what the script does give Becky to craft together a little personality. SPOILER ALERT Capozzi's Carl suffers the same lack of exposure, but the script does a good job at making Carl a trope-subversive character in a similar vein to Brant. While he's introduced as a classic creepy gas station attendant, he's ultimately of the harmlessly odd variety--and ends up sacrificing his life in an attempt to save Sandra and Becky. Spoilers Over

(A little detail about Secrets in the Woods I enjoyed was how Sandra and Becky's troubled past isn't spoon-fed to us in an exposition dump. It's instead given to us in small doses of realistic dialogue, giving us enough to let us come to our own conclusions on what the sisters went through. The same is also applicable to the history of Brant, Langley, and their late mother/wife)

In addition to the fantastic cast and stellar writing, Secrets in the Woods maintains a strong sense of action once it's past the drawn-out opening and wraps things up on a wild climax and an almost comedic closing that seems to be a meta nod to all us regular Lifetime viewers. The sluggishly paced opener is the biggest turn-off of the film, but Secrets in the Woods manages to bounce back with two acts that crank the mayhem up to eleven. Add a well-written story and characters to match, and you have an excellent thriller made for watching over a bowl of popcorn. Once you make it past those clunky first 40 minutes, you'll be out of the woods and ready for the great movie director Sara Lohman has to offer as her Lifetime debut.

Score: 8 out of 10 marmalopes.