Simply A Masterpiece

Bad Acting and worse Bad Screenplay

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

I enjoyed watching this film and would recommend other to give it a try , (as I am) but this movie, although enjoyable to watch due to the better than average acting fails to add anything new to its storyline that is all too familiar to these types of movies.

Well I had been searching for this movie for over a year before I finally got my hands on it. Afterall this movie is from Sweden and I live in the US.I had heard the rumors: Blair Witch Project copycat. This statement is not entirely true though... There is a lot of simularties, and its obvious that the director was heavily inspired by Blair.. But this one is good enough to stand on its own.No ghosts, no aliens (you don't actually see any kind of creature other then the dead chicken looking thing in the beginning).. This movie relies on suspense alone. Was there something out in those woods that made these 5 scientists go insane? We don't get the answer.What irritates me the most here is that the movie is shot with a shaky handcam... yet there is no explanation of it. Why is the movie shot like this when there isn't a 6th person with them shooting the footage? I honestly think adding a cameraman to the story would be more reasonable then the shakeyness for no reason... you can even see the cameraman's shadow at one point.. come on now, if you're gonna ride on Blair's success at least go all the way with it.Other then that - a perfect horror movie.

Dogma-esque horror flick. Five biologists camped out to examine the site of burned down forest discover early an odd, unidentifiable but immediately and mysteriously disgusting "thing." Though the ending's too pat, as if somebody's seen too many b/w "Outer Limits," color video, real actors, lots of daylight, and just enough relationship horror expertly mixed with the horror film horror make this much scarier than "Blair Witch." Note also that, though all the action takes place in the open, in the somewhat desert-like burned out forest, the story's claustrophobic. No journeys, no premature attempts to trek out. It's all pretty much right there where it starts. You end up knowing the place, and dreading it, nearly as well as the characters do. Didn't hit me until just now, but Hirokazu Kore-eda's "Distance" has a structure similar to both this film and the much inferior "Blair Witch." "The Unknown" and "Distance" both resemble the surreally claustrophobic "The Exterminating Angel.

I write this because all my friends hate this movie, ..think if it would have happened to you and your friends in real, then it would be very scary!. Myself i think this is a movie with good atmosphere, spookie characters and a nice place to do a horror film in - The Wood. A rental is it well worth, i think this is a love or hate movie just like the movie "Natural Born Killers" ;-- love this flick too :)

It's bad enough to see a film that's so totally derivative of a film like "The Blair Witch Project" (which I found a yawn, anyway), but to then add insult to injury by adding the key premise of "Alien", to the plot, is not only absolutely ludicrous, but an insult to viewers. Through directors like Ingmar Bergman, Sweden has produced world-class cinema. This film, "The Unknown", has set the Swedish Film Industry back decades.