Backcountry - Merciless wilderness
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| German title | Backcountry - Merciless wilderness |
| Original title | Backcountry |
| Country of production | Canada |
| original language | English |
| Publishing year | 2014 |
| length | 95 minutes |
| Age rating | FSK 16 |
| Rod | |
| Director | Adam MacDonald |
| script | Adam MacDonald |
| production | Thomas Michael |
| music | Vince Nudo |
| camera | Christian Bielz |
| cut | Dev Singh |
| occupation | |
| |
Backcountry - Merciless Wilderness (Original title: Backcountry ) is a Canadian animal horror film from 2014 with Missy Peregrym and Jeff Roop in the lead roles, largely reduced to two characters . Adam MacDonald's film claims to be based on a true story that happened in the Ontario wilderness in 2005 . However, the plot of the film has little in common with the real story.
action
Alex and Jenn are a Canadian couple and, at Alex's initiative, want to spend a weekend together in the wilderness. It should be wildly romantic because Alex, as you learn in the course of the film, wants to propose to Jenn here. While Alex is an adventurous outdoor enthusiast, lawyer Jenn, a city kid through and through, doesn't get too much out of this pleasure and only joins for the sake of her boyfriend. On the drive into the great outdoors, Jenn shows little interest in the beauty of the landscape; her favorite accessory is her Blackberry. Upon arrival at the game reserve, Jenn promises Alex that she will no longer turn on her smartphone. In the park administration's visitor center, Alex, who is annoyed that he is not allowed to walk the planned hiking route on the Blackfoot Trail because it is currently closed, grandly waives the ranger's offer to take a map with him. He sounds like he knows the area inside and out. The couple takes a pre-rented canoe and paddles out onto the lake in order to begin the actual march through nature on the other bank. A mishap happens to Alex right on the bank when he awkwardly drops the canoe pulled ashore on his foot and seriously injures the toe of his right foot. Alex makes fun of Jenn taking an anti-bear spray and a signal flare and tells her that there is no need for that here.
On the way to the high plateau, from which you can see a beautiful lake, where Alex has been several times, Jenn hears one or the other crackling noise that always makes her a little restless. At their first stop at night, the two meet a young man named Brad by the campfire. While Alex distrusts the man who claims that he would work in the forest or for the park, Jenn sees no danger in him. They eat the fish Brad caught together, and the strange stranger makes Alex jealous with his strange talk. Immediately afterwards Brad leaves them again. The lovers move on the next morning. At a fork in the path, Jenn wonders why Alex should take the much smaller path instead of the big one, but she trustingly follows her boyfriend. The following night, Jenn wakes up ahead of time to some noises and wakes her boyfriend up. It calms them down at first, but then becomes a little restless itself when the noises get louder. Then it's quiet again. The next morning you can see Alex's blood-soaked sock from the injured foot and some kinked branches, which suggest that a bear may have been attracted by Alex's blood and was looking for food around the tent. Then both move on. At one point there is a strong smell, and the couple investigates the stench: Jenn and Alex discover a completely gutted deer that has apparently been torn and eaten by a bear. Eventually the couple reached the high plateau. But when he arrives at the top, Alex is horrified to discover that he has completely lost his way: far and wide, only forests can be seen, not a single lake. Now Jenn is scared for the first time. Somewhere in the middle of nowhere and without a hiking map, Alex confesses to his girlfriend, who was rummaging for her cell phone, that he had secretly removed it from her bag and put it in the car, because he feared that she would keep fiddling with it during the hike. For the first time Jenn is really angry with Alex.
The following night a large animal, apparently a bear, sniffs at their tent, but Jenn and Alex do not notice it. The couple wander through the wilderness on their way back the next day without knowing exactly where they are. On the way you discover a large bear cave, which for the first time shows a very real danger. The next morning, Alex clearly hears bear noises. He pulls down the zipper of the tent in which the couple had again spent the night and sees, not far away, a huge black bear trotting straight towards the tent of the two. With shaky hands, Jenn reaches for her anti-bear spray, which she immediately slides out of when the bear starts its first attack. The huge animal seriously injured Alex's lower leg. Only after Jenn gets the spray in her hands again and uses it, does the bear back away for a short time. During the second attack, the bear pulls Alex out of the tent and literally shreds him. Jenn is injured in the arm and loses blood. Completely stunned and helpless, she watches as the black bear digests and eats the dead Alex. As if in a frenzy, Jenn flees the place in shock and wanders through the wilderness. She becomes dizzy in front of her eyes several times, and the loss of blood also weakens her. Jenn spends the following night in a tree for fear of the bear. The next morning she is woken up by the sound of a helicopter flying overhead, but despite her cries for help, she is not discovered by it.
For a while Jenn believes that she has left the giant animal behind, when the bear suddenly reappears at a waterfall and follows her. Her whistle on the whistle only irritates the bear briefly. Severely exhausted, Jenn climbs down the rocky slope to the right of the waterfall, as she had learned from Brad a few days ago, but slips and falls a few meters. Here she breaks her left lower leg bone and splinters it with enormous pain. In fact, the woman manages to find her way back to the discarded canoe on the lakeshore, and Jenn paddles back to the parking lot on the other lakeshore with all her strength. Once there, she collapses and is discovered by a girl from a new tourist group. Brad, who is taking care of these tourists, rushes to Jenn and helps her.
Production notes
Backcountry - Merciless Wilderness was created in the last months of 2013 at various filming locations in the Canadian state of Ontario and was presented to an audience for the first time on September 8, 2014 as part of the Toronto International Film Festival . In Germany, the film did not open in theaters, but was released on July 10, 2015 as Blu-ray Disc and DVD. The German TV premiere was on February 26, 2019 at 10:50 p.m. on Tele 5 .
Awards
The film received several nominations for Canadian film awards:
- Canadian Cinema Editors Award for Dev Singh (best film editor)
- Canadian Screen Award for David Scott and Trina Brink (best makeup)
- Rondo Hatton Classic Horror Awards: Rondo Statuette for Adam MacDonald (best independent film)
Reviews
The reviews reacted mostly positively.
The September 8, 2014 issue of The Hollywood Reporter found: “Knowing that the situations that actor and filmmaker Adam MacDonald invented in the backcountry are based on 'real events' only makes it even more harrowing to open them up the big screen in a way that should make even the most seasoned outdoor enthusiast think. Solid performances from the small cast and sturdy visuals will be a clear plus in sales when the audience is looking for the raw excitement of an elementary survival film. (...) With the use of almost exclusively outdoor shots and the use of wide-screen lenses, MacDonald and the cameraman Christian Bielz manage to shoot astonishingly complex sequences with predominantly natural light. Her rendition of the climax scenes, in which Jenn is running for bare survival, is amazing and disturbingly realistic in its cruelty, which could even make some outdoor recreation seekers watching the film rethink the dangers of their activities. "
In the March 23, 2015 issue of Variety it says: “As an adventure or mishap in the wilderness of surprising ingenuity and blunt violence, the directorial debut of the Canadian actor Adam MacDonald takes time with relish, a terrifying climax and end to the story construct that are almost impossible to describe without divulging everything. Suffice it to say that if you are planning to have dinner with this movie, you should wait until the end of the movie to have dinner. A fine calling card for both MacDonald and his leading actress Missy Peregrym. "
In The Los Angeles Times , the critic called the film "an atmospheric wilderness horror story." Furthermore, in the issue of March 26, 2015, one could read: “What can go wrong when two people are in a forest? Horror films in love with this arrogance have suggested insane killers, malicious aliens, even mythical animals. However, screenwriter and director Adam MacDonald's moderately nerve-wracking wilderness thriller Backcountry reminds with grim, gruesome determination that human error and furry, wild, cold-blooded nature is all it takes to… get the audience going. (...) Christian Bielz's artistic camera work is a plus, and MacDonald knows how to keep a fire of tension going. Backcountry inevitably brings with it a bloodlust, but the film finds atmospheric ways to show how the idyllic tranquility of an excursion into nature can turn into a survival nightmare for the unprepared. "
Individual evidence
- ↑ Certificate of Release for Backcountry - Merciless Wilderness . Voluntary self-regulation of the film industry , June 2015 (PDF; test number: 152 105 V).
- ↑ https://filme-wahrebenkenheiten.com/2015/07/17/backcountry-gnadenlose-wildnis-kanadisches-drama-horror-survival-thriller-aus-dem-jahr-2014/
- ↑ Full film review on hollywoodreporter.com
- ↑ in the original the word game "(mis-) adventure", which cannot be translated in this way, is used
- ↑ Full film review on variety.com
- ↑ Full film review on latimes.com
Web links
- Backcountry - Merciless wilderness in the Internet Movie Database (English)