'Don't Go In The Woods' Trailer: Vincent D'Onofrio Directs The Horror Of Sensitive Rock

Well, this looks quite shaky and is actually something of a serious disappointment coming from long-time acting fave Vincent D'Onofrio. The trailer for his directorial effort Don't Go in the Woods sketches out a story in a which a sensitive rock band retreats to a remote setting to write material for a new record, only to encounter some sort of horror. Call it The Blair Witch Project with acoustic guitars, perhaps.

Evidently D'Onofrio took a bunch of unknowns and semi-unknowns into nowhere to shoot this film, and I wish I could say that the result looks good. It doesn't, at all, but hit the break for a bonus clip from another film that is truly awful, but in a much more entertaining way.

Don't Go in the Woods is sound advice, especially when there's a killer on the loose. First-time director Vincent D'Onofrio (Full Metal Jacket, "Law & Order: Criminal Intent") explores love, greed and ruthlessness in this twisted musical/horror hybrid, telling the story of a young band who heads to the woods to get away from their everyday lives in order to focus on writing new songs. Hoping to walk away from the trip with new tunes that will score them their big break, they instead find themselves in the middle of a nightmare beyond comprehension.

Tribeca Film releases Don't Go in the Woods on VOD and digital December 26, and then in a limited theatrical release starting January 2012.

But wait, there's more. This trailer was really just a good excuse for me to post something else.

Anyone who is familiar with musical anti-masterpieces might have felt a twinge of familiarity when reading the synopsis to this movie. That's because the plot is just similar enough to the story in Jon Mikl Thor's 1987 Canadian rock/horror/WTF opus Rock 'n' Roll Nightmare. In that movie, Thor's band holes up in an old farmhouse to have really unappealing sex and write a new record, but finds evil in the process.

There's more to the story than that, and I couldn't read about Don't Go in the Woods without thinking of it. For those unfamiliar with the mixture of mind-numbing tedium and utter insanity that is Rock 'n' Roll Nightmare, here's a clip from the end of the film. It's a bit spoilerish, but I couldn't find a proper trailer, and being somewhat spoiled on the nature of this movie seems to be the best way to go into it. But really: the sex scenes in Rock 'n' Roll Nightmare are the true horror, and I won't spoil those.

I think this video is safe for work, but it might not be safe for sanity: