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Absolutely Fantastic

A brilliant film that helped define a genre

Pretty good movie overall. First half was nothing special but it got better as it went along.

Watching it is like watching the spectacle of a class clown at their best: you laugh at their jokes, instigate their defiance, and "ooooh" when they get in trouble.

Missy Peregrym is my new heroine. The fetching Canadian actress is a flat-out bad ass as she struggles against the Ontario wilderness and a human hunting bear in "Backcountry". Loosely based on a true story, Peregrym's character and her boyfriend (Jeff Roop, who also impresses) actually switch circumstances in this gripping interpretation of grisly events by Writer/Director Adam MacDonald. You'll please pardon the pun.

Overrated, and misrepresented. Note that "Horror" and "Thriller" are included in the "Genre" section of IMDb for this film. This is no horror story, and not much of a thriller. These mis-categorizations could be the reason for the many bad reviews. Simply put, this film is "not as advertised."

Up until the last few moments, I was ready to give this movie an 8-star rating. Having seen the end, however, i just can't do that. I even feel that a mere 3-star deduction is highly generous. Why? Because I feel cheated. Not only as a movie buff, but also as a man (and I'm not ashamed to say it). Obvious spoilers ahead.I chose to watch this movie to have a break from all the supernatural / run-of-the-mill thriller-horrors out there. I was glad to have found something that is (loosely) inspired by actual events and isn't filled with shallow teenagers acting annoyingly dumb during the first half hour, until things get going at last (I'm usually happy when they start getting offed one by one). In this movie, we witness the ordeal suffered by a man and his girlfriend while in the woods, and we are made to sympathize with them whenever things take an unpleasant turn. First, the girlfriend makes the mistake of talking to a sleazebag and kindly invites him to stay for dinner - the guy, who says he works as a tourist guide, then proceeds to taunt, humiliate and threaten her boyfriend (however subtly), before provoking him in front of her by picking up her panties and making her take them from him with a smirk on his face. I do not think there's a guy in his right state of mind who would not feel repulsed by such behavior. Luckily, the jerk soon leaves and the movie gets straight to the point, as the couple lose their way and end up in the midst of a sea of trees. It does not take long for a huge black bear to show up and begin hunting them. The boyfriend gets massacred quite gruesomely and the girlfriend wanders through the woods, trying to escape. In the end, she uses the last bits of her strength to crawl towards a group of people preparing to enter the woods themselves. Yes, they were tourists, of course. One of them, a young girl, notices the girlfriend and attracts the others' attention to her presence. And guess who turns around and dashes to save her in slow-motion, like the hero that he is (not!)? Our favorite sleazebag tourist guide, obviously!I'll be honest. I found this movie truly engrossing, and I genuinely felt for both the boyfriend and the girlfriend. I can therefore only applaud the film-makers for having achieved that, but would also love to bash their heads in for presenting us with an ending that is not only counterproductive, but even insulting to anyone that sympathizes with the two main characters. It makes me sick!

The first half of the movie is phenomenal. Tension, atmosphere, it's all a pretty good setup. You can kind of tell where things are going as the characters make some dumb choices along the way, but you're still interested. Maybe I'm being hard on them because I have outdoorsman experience, and I know just how stupid a lot of their actions are. But it was all very well-crafted, well-shot, well-directed, and well-acted. The second half? Meh. It went from clever, psychological horror to mindless gorefest in the blink of an eye. I guess this sudden shift of time was supposed to be some shocking movie moment, but really I just went "oh, it's this type of movie now? Ok then." And honestly, the movie it set itself up to be in the first half was far superior. Then you're here thinking, "well, since we've decided to be a gorefest, let's just enjoy a super violent finale!" And you'll be disappointed because the ending they go with is so underwhelming. It's like it tried to go back to the psychological thriller it set up in the first place. Just pick a tone! You want to be an atmosphere piece or you want to show people getting graphically ripped apart by bears? Because if you want to be an atmosphere piece, you can't get off on over-the-top bear maulings, and if you want to be an evil bear movie, you have to give us a gory finale. It tried to do too much and is just a forgettable survival film we've all seen before. With a random scene of a bear eating someone alive.