Woodshock: Shockingly Horrible
In Woodshock, protagonist Theresa (Kirsten Dunst) kills his mother with poison-laced weed, regarded as Assisted Suicide. She works at a cannabis store, with her co-worker Keith (Pilou Asbæk). When a man named Ed (Steph DuVall) picks up the poison-laced weed to commit suicide but it doesn’t work, accidentally killing Keith friend’s Johnny (Jack Kilmer), Theresa starts experimenting with the poison-laced weed and starts to attempt suicide. It never works, but she starts having weird hallucinations and, also, starts to levitate. If you believe this sounds goofy as hell, you’re right.
I didn’t believe one iota of this picture, starting with the stupid plot of killing yourself with marjiuana — what? How? Why? There are other ways to kill yourself that are more effective than smoking a “poison” laced joint, but the “poison” doesn’t even work. What’s the point, then? The weed starts to affect Theresa’s mental state as she becomes more erractic and hallucinates, instead of killing her, like it did with her mother and Johnny. Kirsten Dunst plays the part of Theresa admirably, but her character arc makes her incredibly one-dimensional and completely devoid of any personality. Her solution for all the mess she created is to smoke weed laced in poison! Yet, the poison doesn’t work! But she keeps smoking! What’s the point if it doesn’t work? Why continue? To hope it’s going to work? Jesus. Why revert to weed instead of confessing what you’ve done? But isn’t what your mother wanted? Or not? Good lord, this is so confusingly pedantic.
The supposedly “shocking” scene of the movie is when Theresa kills Keith with, wait for it, an iron! Yet, the scene isn’t properly built up and everything about it feels so goofy and unintentionally hilarious (especially when Theresa screams in so-called “agony”). The scene then turns goofy as hell when Theresa, covered in blood, smokes the last of the poison-laced joints and begins to levitate. STOP!
I’ve smoked (legal, thank you Prime Minsiter Trudeau) weed once in my life. It tasted like shit, yet it didn’t make me hallucinate, levitate or made me do weird shit like killing someone with an iron while screaming incessantly in agony. When Theresa starts smoking the poison-laced weed, things in Woodshock take a turn for an unintentional comedy. Prior to that, the film is filled with her moping around and doing literally nothing of interest.
Oh but you ain’t thinkin’ bout the deeper meanings this film hold —
No, shut up. It’s literally Dunst moping around and doing nothing. There’s no subtext — it’s what you see. And what you get with Woodshock is garbage. Trash weed you buy from the alley is the best description I can give you. If you want a quality film that deals with DRUGS, check out Requiem for a Dream. Woodshock is too goofy to be taken seriously, even if the film looks OK and it has watchable performances from Dunst & Asbæk. You will check out literally after the first 10 minutes filled with horrible dialogue and pedantic writing that will leave your head-scratched for 100 minutes filled with one-dimensional characters who think that killing themselves with weed will make for a compelling story. Spoiler alert: it doesn’t.
