A showcase of directorial talent is crushed by the thunder of poor storytelling in Shoreline’s TIMBER FALLS. Opening in theaters this December, visually I can see the film being sold to an audience, but will anyone stick around to see how it ends?

In the film helmed by Tony Giglio a weekend of camping in the mountains becomes an excursion into hell for a young couple that become pawns in a grotesque plot hatched by deranged locals.

Daniel Kay takes a cliché story and attempts to inject something interesting into it… only he ends up digging a deeper hole. FALLS is like watching an episode of DAWSON’S CREEK with a dash of TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE (woh, it’s another crazzzzzzyyy family!) I know that a lot of you probably just perked up when I mentioned CHAINSAW, but trust me when I say that it’s so extremely uninteresting that it almost doesn’t deserve to be mentioned in the same breathe. And the idea of bringing religion into it is kind of cool, but it’s never really pushed far enough that it’s dangerous.

There’s nothing worse than a horror film that wishes it were a horror film, but isn’t quite a horror film. You can tell that someone involved in the production of this film forced everyone to pull their punches, leaving an axe to the head one of the only real stand up moments… and even then I didn’t jump out of my seat. FALLS is the softest attempt at a hardcore horror film, dodging any attempt at being daring, leaving the typical viewer pretty bored.

Not only did they pussy out on the blood flow and intensity, but also the film itself was the most formulaic and uninteresting thing I’ve seen in a long time. 2+2=4 is about as inventive as opening the film with a lame jolt, kicking things into high gear at the 45 minute mark and then spending the final 15 minutes with numerous monologues explaining what’s going on. I thought the point of a film was so show and not tell? At least don’t bore me to death if you’re going to chit-chat.

The character development was horrendous and the local yokels were about as cardboard cut out as you can get (grow a beard and talk like you're from the south, that’ll do it… HA!) When you don’t care about any of the characters, then why would you even blink when they are in peril?

Furthermore the effects were pretty tame and one of the deformed family members is pretty damn cheesy looking.

All of this is a damn shame because the film does look good and I think Tony Giglio might have some serious talent within. I just get the feeling that someone had a vice grip on his balls and forced him to make a cookie cutter, unoriginal horror film for the PG-13 masses. If a tree falls in the forest, does it make a sound? If anyone is around to hear it I‘m sure it would be more menacing than TIMBER FALLS.