Critic Reviews

Woodshock is both gorgeous and pretentious in equal measures, and it's hard to reconcile the fact that you don't get one without the other – or that, coming in the shadow of another free-form swing for the fences, any rush to ding the movie for being an exercise in style over substance isn't even slightly tinged by gender.

Defiantly inscrutable, Woodshock can test a viewer’s patience, yet the filmmakers’ consistent self-confidence creates an alluring, oddly hypnotic effect.

Woodshock is a sensuous, visual tone poem of human consciousness. It works even when the languid pace, disorienting shifts and Theresa's elastic perception of time stretch a little too thin.

There are a lot of half-complete ideas among the sisters’ jumble of imagery, but trying to tie them together is a fitfully enjoyable, if ultimately fruitless experience.

Woodshock is a study of a mind’s stoned studying, of its slipping in and out of a haze, rather than one of a mind’s unraveling or snapping. It’s just as interesting as that sounds — you’ll either embrace it or find it agony.

Filmmaking craft is not the issue here, it’s the timidity of the storytelling that sits in sharp contrast to the boldness of some of the visual and sonic experimentation.

Viewers who thought nothing much happened in "It Comes At Night" are advised to steer clear.

Woodshock offers a whole lot to look at, but not all that much to see.

The Mulleavys have what it takes to continue in film if they decide to pursue this path, with a firm, confident hold on light, texture, color, mood, sound, and physical space. So if Woodshock is, ultimately, unsatisfying, it’s not because they haven’t put in the time to immerse you in their obsessions.

There’s agony in the margins of every frame, but it remains muted beneath so many layers of color and so many hands drifting across surfaces.