2 out of 5

Directed by: Adam MacDonald

Though Backcountry’s production impresses despite its presumably low budget, a dated mindset – dated even at the time, in 2015 – removes much sympathy for its leads, with overly fussed with editing and framing reducing much of the tension. That flattens an outdoor survival movie quite a bit, and makes some of its potential commentary hard to parse, if it is intended as commentary at all.

Jen (Missy Peregrym) and Alex (Jeff Roop) are off to go camping in a park familiar to Alex from his youth. On the drive up, and during some chiding while the couple unpacks their car and checks in with park management, it’s made clear that this is all Alex’s idea, and he has had to do some good ol’ emotional manipulation to get Jen onboard. While an early shot of Jen, a lawyer, being told to ditch her always-on phone is intended to cast her as the roughin’ it virgin, versus her woodsman boyfriend’s “I don’t need a map” bravado, it moreso just confirms that this isn’t a couple that really belongs together.

I’ll pause for a side rant: there have been many movies and TV shows and books – often scripted by men – that suggest that fighting is a rewarding part of relationships. Not disagreements, but fighting. Like you have to shout and hate sometimes to make the love that much more worthwhile. I recognize I’m (I think) more passive than most, but I am not against disagreements, and believe / accept that those disagreements can get heated at points. You’re not always going to see eye-to-eye with a partner. But being able to evolve your relationship to a point where you can disagree, and can get heated, but that it not have to escalate into a fight – well, I already used the verb “evolve;” I clearly see that as a sign of emotional maturity. But the mentality suggested above still persists. And Backcountry’s characters abide by it. Alex acts like a typical douche bro; Jen apologizes to him for his childishness; there is a point where she lashes out; and instead of this being something that exposes some type of deeper truths, Backcountry uses its dramatics to “earn back” the characters’ love, crystalized in a final shot that focuses on something indicating how enduring that love is.

Un-side ranting a bit, I don’t want to go too far into assuming that this is how writer / director Adam MacDonald feels, as it’s possible those very same referred-to dramatics are actually meant to lampoon these types of relationships, pointing out how ill-functioning they are, or that whatever justifying rhetoric you use doesn’t really matter in the face of nature. Maybe that’s what’s happening. But that final shot sells me otherwise, as does the fact that a lot of the moments that detail the nature of the relationship prove to just be, like, window dressing. Not in a way that reinforces any kind of commentary, but in a way where you are padding your runtime with “character,” while not really tying that character into anything that matters in the movie. More directly, the film’s penchant for staying up close on characters and cutting frequently, while maybe a budget consideration, sacrifices the ability for any scene (or our actors) to breathe. It’s a very empty feeling.

Okay!

So: Alex and Jen are making their way to a magical lake, only Alex needs a map after all and they… are lost. Jen’s (she’s told) silly fear of a bear attack early on is nice bait for what occurs next, with MacDonald maintaining the tension in this particular section very well. My gripes about all the relationship stuff aside, Roop and Peregrym are incredibly believable as your average couple, and the film is pretty tight until shit goes down. Edits are sometimes a bit too horror influenced for their own good – hard cuts, music stings – but on the whole, the opening section of the film passes as valid, if underwhelming, setup for what’s to come.

Which is probably obvious enough from a bear being part of the promotional artwork, as well as my mention above. MacDonald cuts around the bear well, but the minimal budget undersells the impact, unfortunately. We conceptually get that things are very violent and bloody, but here’s where the style works against the tension, with dropped sound and lots of cuts and super closeups never letting anything sink in. And unfortunately, Peregrym can’t quite get us over the line of communicating her fear when she has to go it alone. Also… check the clock: there’s only 20 minutes left by the time we get here, meaning that whatever happens, it’s going to resolve fairly quickly. That’s very deflating. It’s also about when you have to accept that most of the preceding film hasn’t really mattered; the intention was to build tension up to this 20-minutes-remaining point, and then have this be a mad dash, but instead its been a saunter with uninteresting leads to a good ratcheting up event, and then an inability to do much after that point.

If the relationship stuff doesn’t irk you, Backcountry functions acceptably as camping horror, with just enough blood to make the more sensitive hide their eyes. But if you have any desire for something more than that – despite an appreciable application of its budget and a mismatched (in terms of effect) but professional looking production – this is skippable.