[HorrorScience] Backcountry (2014)

Welcome once again to HorrorScience, the section where horror films, science fiction and any other theme that may fit (more or less) between those two are discussed.

This time I am going to talk about the Canadian film Backcountry (known as In the forest. Survive and out of the way in Spanish), directed by Adam MacDonald and starring Jeff Roop and Missy Peregrym (who you may know from the FBI series).

The film begins with Alex and Jenny, a young couple who plan to spend a few days away from the city, in the tranquility of a forest in which Alex spent part of his youth, which causes him to ignore the advice given to him by the forest guard.

After passing a lake and meeting several hikers, they decide to camp in an area designated for this purpose, where Jenny will meet Brad, a hiker guide who, apparently, grew up in that forest. Alex doesn't trust Brad, partly out of jealousy and also because she fears he could be a dangerous man. The next day, Alex convinces Jenny to go off the main road, with the intention of reaching a currently closed area of ​​the valley, a lake hidden between mountains, where he intends to ask her to marry him.

However, as soon as Alex decides to change his route, he comes across bear tracks and, instead of reconsidering his path, he decides to move forward without warning Jenny that it might be dangerous.

Backcountry It is one of those films in which there are few characters and the plot is extremely simple. For some people this may be negative, but for me it is perfect, since we get rid of cliché characters so common in the genre and the story falling into an attempt to be more than it really is. These types of films have given me pleasant surprises in the past, with genius like Duel – The Devil on Wheels (1971) or the interesting Fall (2022), both discussed in this section.

However, I will not deny that Having few characters and a simple plot does not prevent it from falling into clichés or have a bad history and, in this case, we have some hints of it.

The main example of this is Alex, who It seems that he wants to comply with the clichés of horror cinema, because he refuses to follow the recommendations of the forest guard (advice as logical as taking a map or not leaving the main path). Later he gets lost and, instead of thinking about returning to the main path, he continues moving forward, all while knowing that there is a bear nearby and without notifying Jenny of the real situation.

Alex is the typical character that is in almost all horror movies, since thanks to his mistakes the plot advances, but considering that this is very simple, I'm sure it could happen without Alex behaving like an idiot.

For its part, Jenny, although he can be irritating, seems to have more brains than Alex, although it is also true that He goes from being a person who knows absolutely nothing about life in the countryside to being able to make tourniquets, climb trees and splint limbs, which can only be interpreted as that he learns conveniently to advance the plot or that he does know all those things, but at no point have they bothered to show it to the viewer.

Backcountry It tries to keep us tense and largely succeeds.. The threat is real and could happen to anyone, but it is also true that it has not hooked me like the previously mentioned works and that perhaps it would have worked better as a short, since, For much of the film, nothing of note happens.. It was good, but I don't think I'll want to see it again and I'll probably forget it as time goes by.

If you want a realistic film, with few characters and a simple plot You should take a look at it, but don't expect it to be as interesting as Fall or a masterpiece like duel.

Some curiosities about the film:

• The bears used in the film are named Chester and Charlie.
• Backcountry está basada en un hecho real, sucedido en el parque nacional del lago Missinabi de Canada. En ese suceso, las víctimas fueron Mark Jordan y Jacqueline Perry, falleciendo esta última en un hospital cercano tras ser rescatados.