There are woods, and then there are The Woods—the kind that swallow you whole, where time splinters, friendships curdle, and the moss seems to whisper your name. In The Woods, the debut feature from writer-director Sarah Lyons, four inseparable besties reunite for one last hike before college graduation. What begins as a sentimental capstone to their coming-of-age quickly devolves into something more fraught, feral, and fatal.
The film screens April 9 at Avalon Lounge in Catskill, courtesy of Sleepover Trading Company. Lyons will be present for a Q&A, possibly to explain why you should never follow your childhood memories into the forest without a map—or at least a working group chat.
The premise is deceptively simple: Four friends retrace the hike that first bonded them in middle school. But this isn’t your standard reunion tour. Something is off in these woods. Cell phones glitch, compasses spin, and loyalties fracture. What was supposed to be a nostalgic romp becomes a psychological spiral, as the natural world begins to feel unnaturally sentient. Think Blair Witch with less screaming and more existential dread, or Stand by Me reimagined by a queer millennial Shirley Jackson.
The story is told in hindsight, refracted through the lens of a true crime podcast years after the hike, narrated by the sole survivor, Kate Reed. Her voice—wry, wounded, still trying to make sense of it all—guides us through the foggy memories and muddy motives of what happened out there. It’s a clever narrative frame that lets the film play with time, truth, and the slipperiness of shared trauma.
Lyons, who cut her teeth in political organizing and nonfiction writing, brings a sharp cultural intelligence to the genre, avoiding cliché in favor of subtle unease. Her characters feel lived-in and recognizable: not stock horror meat for the slaughter, but real friends who’ve known each other too long, loved each other too much, and can’t quite say the things they should before it’s too late. The performances are intimate, aching, and, by the end, devastating.
Shot on location in our local woods (the Hudson Valley never looked so menacing), the film makes excellent use of its natural environment. Trees loom, shadows stretch, and the sunlight filtering through the canopy feels more like a threat than a balm. If the forest is a character, it’s not a kindly one.
The Woods isn’t interested in jump scares or gore. Its horror is quieter, rooted in the fragility of memory, the violence of nostalgia, and the terrifying realization that even your best friends might not follow you out of the dark.
This article appears in March 2025.
