If a shapeshifter began picking off your small
group of friends at a remote rental cabin, what would you do? A Yosemite Park Ranger once said, “There
is a considerable overlap between the intelligence of the smartest bears and the dumbest tourists.” That’s definitely the case here. Collectively, these weekend glampers have
three functional brain cells between them. And they’re using those to get lost in the
woods, chase after obviously body snatched human husks, and bombard us with so many montages
it’s like someone spliced a rom com into my horror movie. There’s just no extra computing power to
defeat the thing living in the woods, the ancient creature that can change its form
to infiltrate the group. Honestly they’re so dumb, the shapeshifter
doesn’t even need to do that at all. Hunting these people is like going hog hunting
with an AK in someone’s fenced in backyard. I’m going to break down the mistakes made,
what you should do, and how to beat MONTAGE THE MOVIE…I mean, how to beat the SHAPESHIFTER
in FOREST OF DEATH. It’s 3:03am. Alex is woken by the sound of a dripping faucet. She stumbles toward the open bedroom door
when a human figure sprints across the doorway. No it’s not a ghost. It’s an actual living, breathing monster…that
isn’t satisfied to feast on easily killable sleeping prey. Doesn’t scratch the right itch, I guess. Even though she doesn’t know what it is
yet, the very real intruder doesn’t spark any self preservation instincts whatsoever. Instead of shutting and locking the very lockable
door in front of her, Alex wakes her boyfriend Brad to deal with it. He flies outta bed raring to go, like he finally
has the excuse he’s been waiting for to try out that new gun he bought for home defense. Only there is no gun, or anything else nearby
for him to grab. All the more reason to LOCK THE DOOR between
you and the intruder. Instead, Brad’s sleep addled brain wakes
up after he’s halfway across the living room. He grabs a random Michael Myer’s knife left
out on the kitchen counter and tiptoes toward a nearby open door. Just as he steps through the doorway, something
yoinks him straight off his feet. Whatever it is, it’s packing the sort of
ape strength that should have them doubling back into the bedroom with the knife and their
perfectly functional cell phone to call for help. Alex goes for the phone, but before she can
dial, the door reopens and Brad appears with bloody scratches on his face. He tells her he killed “it.” Alex enters to find Brad’s corpse with its
eyes gouged out, learning all too late that something has replaced Brad. A pruney Bsack with teeth leaps at her, handing
off humanity’s three functional brain cells to the next bumbling chucklefreak. The opening credits cue up the orientation
video you see as you enter Heck and we meet our would be victims – I mean, heroes. Tom and Ashley have roped their awkward best
friends Dylan and Tracy into joining them at an isolated Air BnB deep in the forest
for a “couples” weekend. They waste zero time hitting the trails, giving
us the first of many – MANY – montages. It lasts so long that by the time they start
to head back, they’re hopelessly stupidly lost after dark, with a single flashlight
between the four of them. No cap, I am legit surprised they remembered
to bring one at all. It’s a plus, but it does jack all to help
them un-lose themselves. There are zero trail markers, no defining
natural landmarks, and it seems like there’s a new moon, meaning zero visibility without
their only light source. If they didn’t bring a phone – which I
just don’t believe – or if there’s no service, I’d suggest building a fire using
Dylan’s lighter. Then, either wait until morning when you can
see your way through the forest or snap off four green branches and create torches from
torn pieces of a shirt. Preserve the flashlight for when those burn
down. All of this is moot, though, if you have no
idea where your cabin is, or in which direction you need to travel. Ideally before they even left the Air BnB,
one of them should have downloaded a google map of the area around the cabin onto their
phone. Not only can this help when you’re lost
without internet access, but it gets saved to your account in case you disappear and
they have to hire a real outdoorsman to track your lost butt down. With no house lights to guide them, Dylan
tells them to stand still while he walks ahead to check the non-trail for signs of civilization. Sure. Take our only source of light while you’re
at it, jackhole. If there ever was a trail, you guys left it
a long time ago. The only reason to split up now is to be alone
when you sell your friends’ souls to t he Blair Witch. Dylan walks out of visual range of his friends
and has his first encounter. Because that’s totally normal. No joke, Dylan calls out to this thing for
directions. Dylan, don’t ever visit Yellowstone, man. You’re gonna be one of those tourists that
gets gored trying to pet an elk the size of an old god. I don’t know about you, but I have a built
in creepypasta detector that spikes any time a human shaped thing doesn’t behave the
way a human shaped thing should. Like right now, staring at us and running
past us in the woods. It’s behaving like a predator. Time to get REAL good at training your flashlight
on it as you back away calling VERY loudly for your friends and looking for a big stick
to carry as a weapon. Instead, Dylan encounters his next cryptid
of the forest. A good ole boy named Roger who has all the
warmth and charm of a recently escaped convict. He points a 12-gauge inches from Dylan’s
face, ranting about something in the woods killing his livestock until Dylan convinces
him he’s renting the cabin. Turns out the thing that killed the original
couple ain’t the only predator hunting in this neck of the woods. Correct me if I’m wrong, but Roger strikes
me as the type of guy who has to go door to door introducing himself and his parole officer
every time a new neighbor with kids moves in… So of course, they’re going to follow him
through the woods without any confirmation he is who he says he is. In a different subgenre, this would be a very
short movie. Hey Dylan? You gonna tell anybody about the dude in pajamas
playing peekaboo with you in the trees? Roger, are you going to tell everyone else
about the thing butchering your animals, the one that has you out here waving shotguns
in people’s faces? Let me remind you…he pointed the gun at
Dylan FIRST THING, meaning he believes a human or something that LOOKS human is stalking
through this forest. Is no one concerned about this? Guess not. Back at the cabin, the group meets Joe, the
owner, who tells them that the nearest police station is over an hour away, so they should
call HIM if there’s an emergency. Sure thing, pal. I’m sure this is a Dale and Tucker situation
where you only look and sound as creepy as humanly possible. How about you do the normal host thing and
leave a list of emergency numbers – including your own – in the cabin next time you rent
it out. Tom tries to reassure the girls that the hillbillies
mean them no harm, even if one of them nearly removed their heads with a shotgun, they’re
just trying to get their 5 star review as this is the first time the cabin has been
rented out. But later, a two second google search will
reveal that this is the murder house where the shapeshifter plucked out Brad’s eyes. In this age of digital overinformation, are
you seriously saying you didn’t google the freaking address before renting this place? Not to find the nearest grocery store or pizza
place, or even a general freaking trail map? It’s a miracle they haven’t died of boredom
before the wendigo shows up. The group dives into the second montage in
15 minutes before we get this little moment. I’m sorry. Are you complaining about building a campfire? And I’m supposed to root for these people? When Dylan’s gas station lighter punks out,
Tom leaves to find paper in the house while Dylan goes full TikTok fail with old gasoline
from the garage. That’s one way to stay warm for the rest
of your very short life. Suddenly, it sounds like Tom calls out from
behind him, deep in the pitch black forest. Maybe Dylan’s been pre-baking, but…your
friend just said he was going to go look for paper in the HOUSE. The woods - if it isn’t already obvious
- are a complete 180 from the house. Him looking for paper out there would be like
me looking for beer in a hops farm. And you would have seen him go out there anyway. Nevermind the bears, mountain lions, and wolves
that are definitely stalking your frail human form at this very second, but you were the
ONLY person in your friend group to hear Roger’s shotty folk warnings about a psycho animal
killer running around the woods. Why are you not more freaked out right now? Something with night vision creeps toward
him in the dark, offering help, offering guidance. The thing that sounds like Tom tells him not
to light the fire just yet, but when flames erupt and Dylan turns, Tom is nowhere to be
seen. He turns again, and Tom – the real Tom – is
standing across from him. Dylan asks if Tom was out in the woods, but
he was inside the house. As we head into our THIRD montage…I gotta
ask the million dollar question here. What IS this thing’s goal? It killed Brad and Alex. It’s trying to lure these kids into the
woods…to do what exactly? Tom goes to replenish the beer supply only
to find the door to the house wide open…and Roger standing right next to him when he closes
the fridge door. In a moment, we’ll find out this is the
Real Roger, but…the opportunities exist almost constantly here to kill and mimic the
kids. So why isn’t this thing doing any of that? My guess is it likes the thrill of the hunt,
the delicious irony of luring people into a false sense of security before it tears
them apart…but again…why ISN’T it attacking now? If I were the blood drinking demon spirit
wandering this forest, the movie would end here, with me killing Tom, assuming his form,
and waiting for the others to come inside. Properly assimilated into the group, I could
take my time making each feel more and more uncomfortable as I pick them off one by one. Then, when only one moron remains, I’d let
them catch me clawing at the corpses of their friends, scaring them into running blindly
into the forest. The most dangerous game would begin as I hunted
them down and ripped out their still beating heart, feasting on their flesh as those last
three brain cells short circuited and I watched the life fade from their eyes. I-I mean, what were we talking about? Instead of telling Roger to leave the property,
Tom lets Roger invite himself to their fire circle to share the lore of the woods. He tells them the locals avoid this area because
of the creature that lives here. He tells them people call it all sorts of
names – demon, wendigo, skinwalker – but it’s really a shapeshifter that assumes
human form to torture and confuse you before it attacks. It only comes out at night and can somehow
supernaturally assume the form of people it’s never even seen. The only thing it hates…is fire. After telling them about his own run in with
the shapeshifter, Roger warns them not to let the fire die down and leaves, taking humanity’s
last three brain cells with him for the night. IMMEDIATELY, Tom wanders into the dark woods
alone to pick up sticks for the fire. Either Ashley just leveled up to wife status
with this impeccably timed joke or Roger might be on to something. Lucky for Tom, the shapeshifter likes to play
with its food. He returns to the fire to find Ashley never
left her seat. He tries to tell them what he heard in the
woods, but no one believes him. I get it – pretty stellar timing to encounter
a shapeshifter just seconds after being warned about one…but also danged stupid to dismiss. Even if Roger was wrong, someone is out here
in the woods pretending to be your girlfriend. Maybe take even the most basic precautionary
measure. Instead, we get ANOTHER day long montage,
which ends with Dylan taking shots of Tracy and spotting something that shouldn’t be
there. Dylan tells the girls he’s seen the guy
before – it was the same guy who ran across his path when they first got lost. He asked the guy for help but received no
response. They check other photos and find shots of
Roger following them through the woods too. They toy with the idea of calling Joe to ask
for a refund but opt for YET ANOTHER montage instead. You thought I was joking earlier, but you
can’t convince me this movie wasn’t made by a social media algorithm. Almost in rebellion, my inhuman mind flares
to life with vivid, murderous strategies. I am the shapeshifter of the forest. I listen to the sounds of merriment within
as I strut right up to the front door and knock. Moments before one of them opens the door,
I shift into Roger’s form, adopting his feral grin and denim uniform, his greasy hair
smothered in a hat shaped from my own flesh. Despite every nerve in their fragile unsuspecting
bodies screaming of an uncertain danger, and those last three brain cells scrambling to
form coherent thoughts, they’re crippled by politeness. Heck, I don’t even have to take Roger’s
form. These four would open their door to anybody. There are so many ways I can convince them
to do what I want. Should I make up an excuse to lure one outside
and take their form before returning to the group? OR should I just snatch the unsuspecting greeter
when they open the door, so the rest are tenderized by their own fear? No. That would still be too easy. I need to savor this…Oh – Ahem – sorry,
the montage is finally over. Suddenly, Ashley sees Roger appear at the
back patio door…which is dang odd considering this is a second level deck with no way up. So, of course, she opens the door immediately. Despite no one being on the deck, Tom pressures
Dylan into helping him go out into the woods to look for Roger. They hear a noise and turn to see something
that looks and sounds like Roger. Tom tells him to leave them alone, but the
Roger lookalike begins moving between trees, talking crap, until the forest is alive with
a choir of discordant hillbilly elegies. The guys get back to the house and tell the
girls they saw Roger…and then saw others moving in the woods. Instead of lighting a fire under their butts
to pack quickly and head for their SUV, Ashley calls Joe to come get Roger off the property,
but Joe tells her, Roger’s been with him all day watching sports. Ashley asks to speak with him and Joe puts
him right on the phone. Ashley backs off immediately and within seconds
the friends have swept the whole thing under the rug as some sort of group hallucination
I guess, in favor of enjoying the rest of their weekend… but like…NEITHER scenario
is good, right? At best, some rando is wandering around in
the dark outside your cabin, scaring your girlfriends. At worst, it’s something that can walk and
talk and act exactly like skeevy Roger stalking the perimeter of your home like a demon looking
for a break in the salt circle. Look, I want to go easy on our clearly brain-damaged
victims here. I really do. But whoever called dibs on the brain cells
last time clearly forgot to put extra quarters in. A few seconds after everyone’s just decided
to forget the entire episode, Ashley and Tom spot Roger standing in the back yard staring
up at their window. Tom barrels out of the bedroom and recruits
Dylan to help him track the creeper down…but before you know it, both Tom and Ashley are
wandering off into the woods alone. When Ashley reappears, she walks and talks
like a pod person. Tracy notices the difference immediately. Ashley’s a fembot replacement of herself…but
they don’t have the stones to do much more than let her into their home and take Tom
into the bedroom alone. Dylan tells Tracy he thinks Roger was right,
pulling up a wikipedia article about shapeshifters as evidence. The fear of fire, the multiple voices, the
strange changes in behavior – they all correspond to legends of shapeshifters. He tells her he finally bothered to look up
the property and found an article about the double homicide that happened here a few months
before. She doesn’t believe it’s the same guy
Dylan says he saw in the forest…until he pulls up one of the photos he took and shows
her it’s the exact same guy. Great. So, five minutes to pack and we’re in the
car, right? Again, at best this guy in the article killed
his girlfriend, faked his death, and has been wandering around the woods since it happened. At worst, it’s something that only looks
like him. Either way – what are we still doing here? Call out to your friends and tell them to
pack, and that you’ll explain why you’re leaving on the way. Instead, Tracy and Dylan start packing like
they’re planning to leave their friends behind. When they finally remember Ashley has the
car keys, they find that Tom and Ashley are missing and Ashley left her phone behind. Suddenly, someone knocks on the front door. Tracy goes to open the door when Dylan stops
her, worried it’s not Tom. She doesn’t care; she can see he’s injured…just
as something begins banging on the back patio door. It’s also Tom. He shouts for them to let him in. Dylan puts one more quarter in the brain cell
rental machine and decides to test the lookalikes to see which is real. Not gonna lie…if we’d gotten more of this
and fewer of those smooth brain montages, this coulda been a fun time. They let the Real Tom in and see he’s badly
wounded. He tells them something that looked like Ashley
attacked him. Dylan TRIES calling the cops, but the attempt
is so ham fisted it’s like watching an alien trying to string human words together for
the first time. When that fails spectacularly, Dylan says
they should leave and meet the cops halfway, but Tracy won’t leave without Ashley…which
means…time to tie Tracy up and carry her if you have to. What part of “it takes the form of things
it kills” do none of you understand? After they call Joe for help, the shapeshifter
appears as Ashley at the patio door, taunting Tracy with the car keys and pressuring her
to escape into the woods. I mean…hot blondes luring people into the
woods would be a super effective coven recruitment tactic. Ashley offers Dylan a deal – she’ll let
him live if he gives her Tom. When he refuses she says she’ll kill them
all instead. That won’t be too difficult considering
not a single person here can cobble together any semblance of a plan to defeat her. Plus, she not only has the keys to the car…but
the keys to the house as well. And now I understand. This poor apex predator has been trapped in
its shrinking woodland for far too long, deprived of adequate stimulation and toys to play with. Cursed to roam the shadows preying on a food
source that’s so stupid it just waits around to die instead of fighting back. No wonder it’s taking its sweet time, playing
with its victims the way a cat plays with a mouse. Tom whacks her with the fire poker but the
shapeshifter just takes it from him. Dylan grabs a utility knife from a kitchen
drawer, but she just pops it right into his stomach like she’s opening a capri sun before
she plays pokey-stabby with Tom’s gut. Tracy pulls Dylan away. They make a pit stop in the garage to craft
a quick torch out of a stick, shirt and gasoline. Just one. Even though he has to break a stick in half
to make it. Did you two forget this shapeshifter’s only
weakness? How about you go back upstairs and set her
on fire? Or maybe douse the exits with gas and set
the whole thing aflame? Even simpler – just walk back to the fire
pit and start a fire. If the logic holds this thing is scared of
flame, then you could literally just stand by the fire’s edge all night, occasionally
tossing in anything within the circle of light to keep it going until dawn when the shapeshifter
is forced to retreat into the woods. No?...you’d rather wander off into the pitch
black woods with no back up torch or gasoline to keep it going? And no phone. And no knife or weapon of any kind. No, I didn’t stutter. Even though the driveway connected to the
main forest road is right there, THEY WANDER OFF INTO THE WOODS THEY GOT LOST IN NOT TWO
DAYS AGO. See what I mean? The shapeshifter’s not even running. This is like watching a captive snake try
to make eating a frozen mouse even the slightest bit fun. Dylan’s wound starts to slow him down as
we get a glimpse of a second shapeshifter wandering around trying to pick up their scent. Eventually, Dylan tells Tracy to run ahead. He can’t keep up and the torch is slowly
going out. If she doesn’t hurry, it’ll be completely
used up before she reaches help. So…maybe…I don’t know…build a fire
before the torch dies? God…if only you had a fourth brain cell. Tracy rushes away as Dylan taunts the thing
in the woods to keep its attention on him. Dylan sacrifices in vain. Tracy’s torch goes out just as she nears
the main road. Joe appears in his truck. She tells him to follow her ON FOOT into the
woods in search of Dylan… …of course, it’s a trap. The angry freakl sack attacks and that’s
all she wrote for our very own cotton eyed Joe. In a world with only three brain cells, none
of us are making it out of these woods alive. The shapeshifters are simply toying with their
victims, like they’re replaying a video game they know by heart and trying to make
it fun again by creating challenges for themselves. To the shifters, I hope you migrate closer
to the nearest town with a comic book store and grab a copy of any X-Men issue featuring
Mystique so you can really start enjoying your powers properly. In a world with people smarter than your average
plastic bag, our best bet is to leave the moment we know someone in the woods is freaking
with us. Or, we could actually listen to the yokel’s
tale of how to defeat the cryptid, NOT randomly wander into the woods by ourselves, keep the
fire stoked all night, and set the thing on fire if we have to. For that reason, I think the FOREST OF DEATH
was BEATEN. May we never suffer the existential boredom
of a max level cryptid in a level one world.
