Backwoods

Backwoods (2008)

Backwoods tells the story of a group of software designers who head off to the remote mountains for a weekend excursion. What they don’t know is that they are headed towards the home of a strange religious cult that hates outsiders. The fact that one of the designers is wearing an F.B.I. hat only encourages the cult’s paranoia against being attacked by the government. Will any of them survive their encounter with the cult? More importantly will the females of the group escape becoming “brides” of the chosen one?

So when I sat down to watch this movie I had very little expectations. I mean it seems that the movie’s biggest claim to fame was that it starred Haylie Duff! But then the movie started and I have to admit it was entertaining. Backwoods starts off strong with the first couple that gets grabbed by the cult members. This is key because it sets up what the cult does to those that cross it’s path. Then after that strong opening we are introduced to the corporate hot shots that are heading out into the great outdoors for some paintball and bonding. Little time is wasted introducing them and then getting them out into the woods to get victimized. I also thought that the forced breeding bit with the huge creepy “chosen” one of the cult was pretty sleazy and fun. I also wanted to say that I was very dubious of the inclusion of Haylie Duff in the cast, but she does a great job in her role. As a matter of fact the entire cast is quite good in what they are asked to do, which is mostly run around in terror.

Now that said I was sort of disappointed with some of the movie. Backwoods takes you right up to where things look to get disturbing and then stops. The movie hints at some really twisted stuff with the forced “breeding” of the women outsiders. Twice the movie cuts away from assaults like this. I don’t want to sound like a creep, but this hurts the movie. Just to be clear I don’t mean that they had to be more explicit. You can shoot assaults like this very powerfully without showing anything more than they did here. Later on when the Haylie Duff character is put in the same situation it just isn’t as engaging as it could have been. I never really felt like the character was in any real danger. Additionally there is a decision by one of the characters later on in the movie that would have been more understandable if the scenes had more weight to them. The other thing that I wanted to mention are the death scenes. There are plenty of kills in Backwoods, but none of them are memorable. This complete lack of gore is a real bummer in a rated R horror movie. The best we get are some wooden stakes thru the chest and an arrow to the head.

So as you can tell there are some things that I enjoyed about Backwoods and some things that I didn’t enjoy. The movie had the potential to be a decent horror film, but just kept stopping short. Even so I still say it is worth checking out at least once, so if you can get it on the cheap or rent it do so. I just don’t see this as being the kind of movie that I personally will watch again.

2 ½ out of 4

reviewed by John Shatzer