In what has to be one of the stranger what-were-they-thinking films I've seen lately, a young, good-looking couple is on a hiking trip in West Virginia when they fall prey to deep-woods hillbillies who kidnap them for their own twisted agenda.

Think you've seen it before? Well, yeah, kinda. Timber Falls plays by all the typical rules of modern hillbilly horror and torture porn. Every kind stranger turns out to be in on it and every jerk turns out to be either a victim or a savior ... it's all there. Every last convention. It even goes so far as to prove itself to be much smarter than the average fare by offering up a series of story and character-driven explanations for why certain tropes of the genre are adhered to. In fact, from the cover art, the blurb on the back, and, hell, the first 30 minutes, you safely think you're watching just another entry into been-there-done-that territory.

But watch your step, because the twist at the end of the first act is a doozie. And while I'm not usually the spoiler type, this movie is one thing disguised as another -- but not necessarily in a good way. Is it still hillbilly horror? Yes. It is still torture porn? Definitely. So what's the problem? Well, we find our heroes kidnapped not to be slowly tortured, chased through the woods and killed by some inbred, mutant, West Virginian birth defect. Instead, they are tortured and harassed by some inbred, mutant, West Virginia birth defect for the purposes of procreation. You see, the mutant's sister can't have children and, well, these hillbillies believe it is God's will for them to have babies. So they fully intend to have someone else have the babies for them. Or else.

You get all that? In what is clearly a modern response to the growing evangelical presence in American politics, the villains are a trio of Bible quoting, salt-of-the-Earth kinfolk, perverting God's word and torturing two good-natured, non-religious tree huggers into a shotgun wedding to make their sinful acts clean before the eyes of God. But the intentional juxtaposition of such brutality with such rigid adherence to The Word and a dislike of profanity is pushed even further when the hillbillies have a discussion about how aborting a baby is murder, so killing the pregnant mother outright is the only solution.

Yeah, needless to say I found the film uncomfortable -- but also found myself praying for moments of gore and screaming so I could relax from the tension of the forced social commentary. It's not that I found what the film had to say offensive in any way -- they clearly weren't taking a broad swipe at Christianity and religion in general -- but I was bothered by the film's overuse of Christian iconography, including the use of a cross as a weapon, a cross covered in blood and brains from an exploding head/shotgun gag. The message isn't the worst ever, but it could have not only been handled better, but in a pair of genres other than those crippled by recent overexposure and lack of innovation. And no, I don't think that the West Virginia Tourism Board will be using this film to encourage travel anytime soon, unless of course they want people to drive around the state.

The execution, if you'll pardon the pun, is just fine for a movie of this caliber, and it certainly does what it's supposed to do cinematically. When all is said and done, it's not that Timber Falls is a bad movie; it's just one with an idea so bizarre you'll either swallow it or you won't. It's available on DVD now.

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