Based on how much I adore director Lucky McKee’s film May, I was really looking forward to seeing its follow-up, The Woods. Was I disappointed? Somewhat. Am I surprised by the fact that I was disappointed? Not really. I love May so much that almost anything McKee did afterward was bound to not measure up (although his 2006 Masters of Horror episode, "Sick Girl," comes extremely close).

The Woods starts wonderfully, with a classic storyline that’s told well, and tonally perfect performances. The movie is set in the mid-sixties, and McKee does an amazing job of evoking the period. In fact, the film’s first hour is so satisfying and full of ambience that it’s a bit upsetting when it all seems to fall apart in the last act. But this is a standard problem in all forms of writing. That final act can be a bitch, and as good a director as McKee is, he was not able to quite fix this one glitch. I seem to remember tales of a troubled shoot, and I would not be surprised if McKee started production before there was a locked script (but I’m not sure about that). Also, this is the first movie McKee has directed that he did not write. So, I’m sure we can all see that several ingredients are present for a possibly unsatisfying flick. However, as many genre movie fans know, "unsatisfying" is not necessarily the same as "unwatchable." And The Woods is quite watchable.

It’s a shame that United Artists dumped The Woods straight to DVD. Actually, it sat on the shelf for around three years before it saw the light of day at all. I really would have liked to see it get a full theatrical release. The Woods is not perfect, but it is better than most scary movies out there these days. Granted, it’s not full of blood and guts or naked nubile teen girls (dammit), so there’s a good chance it would’ve bombed. Still, to see a true supernatural horror flick, with plenty of atmosphere¾the kind they don’t make anymore¾released in theaters would have been a treat for me. Less is more, and in horror, atmosphere is everything.

Agnes Bruckner is very good as Heather, a troubled teen sent away to a mysterious all-girls boarding school. Bruckner gives a wonderfully nuanced performance in what could have been a cliché role. Patricia Clarkson, one of the better actors working these days, does what she can with the part of headmistress of the school. And Bruce Campbell gets to show some character-actor chops as Heather’s father. He effectively underplays his character, which, as we all know, is quite a change for Bruce. It’s nice to see he has it in him.

Here’s a fun piece of trivia for all you geeks out there. M. Night Shyamalan wanted to use The Woods as the title for his 2004 yawner The Village. But Lucky McKee already had the script for this film in play, so Shyamalan had to change the name of his flick. I love this fact. Don’t get me wrong. I like Shyamalan’s films, but I always root for the underdog. Plus, I think The Woods is much better than The Village. But I digress.

So, what’s the deal with the strange school at the heart of this flick? What’s the deal with its mystical relationship to the woods surrounding it? And why do these woods seem to have a taste for human blood? Well, I’m not going to tell you that, but I will tell you this: The Woods is worth catching up with…just don’t let them catch you.