[filmmaker2]

Yeah, I thought it was okay. But what a bummer of an ending.

I thought the story was interesting, but I didn't think the monster stuff was perfect in its execution...the suit version of the monster never looked right, and they tried to hide the "suity" look of it with digital post effects...

There is a brief and very effective moment, however, where one character sees the creature in a vision, and it appears as an assemblage of moving sticks, twigs and thorns...roughly in a humanoid animal shape...it looked like a marionette, and this had a frame blurring effect over it, too, but this served to make the odd image even odder.

I wouldn't call it a pure horror film. It's more of an artsy horror drama, and it won't go down well if you're expecting exploitation. It had some elements of classical children's fairytales--discovery of the reality of death, primal fears, etc. If you delve into some older children's fairytale books (say, from before 1925), you'll find quite a few of the stories end in a sucky downer sort of way, like this one does. I was so depressed I vowed never to watch it again, and sold the tape.