Directed by Nicholas Woods, The Axiom tells of a group of friends who are accompanying their friend McKenzie (Hattie Smith) in the search for her lost sister, who has seemingly gone missing in the middle of America’s heartland. The omens aren’t particularly good, as clues from pages of McKenzie’s sibling’s journal, which she has brought along, tell of dangerous woods that people have disappeared into. The trouble is the group of friends aren’t aware that she has these in her possession.

Upon arrival at a cabin in the forest, McKenzie meets the alleged owner, Leon (William Kircher, from The Hobbit franchise), who without pause provides some safety devices (a cell phone and some vials of liquid), which he demands that she and her friends drink to survive and to stop ‘the voices’.  Inevitably, the legend and mystique of the forest start to take on more sinister tones, as hallucinations and screwed-up imagination take hold, exploiting the group’s own internal psychological concerns and issues, particularly with one of them who is a natural bipolar sufferer…

The latest in a long tradition of going-down-to-the-woods-for-a-surprise-or-two flicks that encompasses the likes of Cabin Fever, The Forest, and The Blair Witch Project, The Axiom is familiar territory and as a result you might anticipate where some scares will prevail. The overall idea behind the film does border on the far-fetched, but works fair enough as a hook on which to base the effective gore and shocks. The biggest critique is that the film probably takes itself a little too seriously and would perhaps have been improved by embracing some broader humour a la the Evil Dead series.

The Axiom / Director: Nicholas Woods / Screenplay: Nicholas Woods / Starring: Hattie Smith, Zac Titus, Nicole Dambro, Michael Peter Harrison / Release Date: TBC