Adam Wingard may not be a household name to casual movie fans. But the director has carved out a solid position in the genre world thanks to a host of recent indie hits, including 2011’s house-party-gone-awry slasher movie You’re Next and 2014’s John Carpenter-esque The Guest (not to mention his contributions to the horror anthologies V/H/S and The ABCs of Death). And from the looks of his latest, his mainstream breakout could arrive this September, when he delivers an all-out horror experience courtesy of Lionsgate.
Bolstered by phenomenal advance word-of-mouth (Time Out New York’s Joshua Rothkopf recently tweeted, “You may think you’re ready for THE WOODS but you’re not.”), The Woods is a found-footage effort about a group of college kids who embark on a camping trip, only to discover that they’re not the only ones in the forest. That set-up sounds pretty familiar, and the film’s camcorder-filtered style suggests a resemblance to the subgenre’s granddaddy, 1999’s The Blair Witch Project.
Nonetheless, as confirmed by its debut trailer above — which offers little in the way of concrete plot details, but provides a great sense of the action’s ominous atmosphere — there’s undoubtedly far more to The Woods than merely rehashing old scary-movie conventions. Between Wingard’s pedigree and his recent Twitter proclamation that “This is my first full on ‘sh-t your pants’ horror film,” it’s quickly shaping up to be one of the fall’s must-see efforts for those looking to get scared silly.
The Woods creeps into theaters on Sept.16.
