10 Best Movies You Can Watch For Free (Legally) On YouTube Right Now
4. The Woods
If you can forgive its boring, uninspired title, 2006's The Woods is an engaging horror-thriller. It might look like a trashy bargain bin pile of nonsense, but it's actually a methodically-constructed character study that is less interested in generating cheap thrills, and more interested in slowly ratcheting up the tension before pulling the trigger in a wild and gripping final act.
The movie follows rebel teen Heather Fasulo, a troubled youngster who is shipped off to a mysterious boarding school in the middle of the woods. Cue a disturbing story about missing girls, bloody nightmares, witches, and violent tree vines. You'd be forgiven for thinking that this is nothing more than B-movie schlock (it was released direct-to-DVD, and its cast is full of unknowns), but it's surprisingly clever, looks great, and successfully subverts expectations at every turn.
For example, there's a stereotypical "high-school bully" character, who turns out to have more depth than it seems on the surface. And best of all, the final 20 minutes explodes in a shower of violence (featuring Bruce Campbell with an axe - win) despite the rest of the movie being relatively low-key and quiet.
The Woods is smarter than it looks, and proves that straight-to-DVD doesn't always equal throwaway garbage.