There’s an effective nastiness to this slasher-horror about a cub-scout pack from first-time Belgian director Jonas Govaerts, who draws on influences ranging from Guillermo Del Toro to Sam Raimi – though not Baden-Powell. (One character is surnamed Franju, incidentally, which may be a tiny homage to Eyes Without a Face: mask-wearing turns out to be important.) A cub troop is about to go on a camping trip, but there’s tension in the ranks: a lot of the boys don’t much like Sam (Maurice Luijten), a troubled kid from a broken home. When they pitch camp in a creepy forest, the cubs have a fantasy game about a werewolf called Kai who comes out at night. But it’s only Sam who appreciates that there actually is a monstrous boy lurking there, wearing a weird pagan mask fashioned from tree bark; it all has something to do with this woodland’s evil history. For me, this movie tips its hand very early, probably too early, about the exotic gruesomeness lurking in the underbrush. More comically fascinating are the traditions and customs of cubdom itself. Cubs are in fact this film’s USP, the thing that sets it apart from all those influences and borrowings, and it gets lost a bit. A creepy excursion, though.
