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Wilderness is an effective and brutal thriller/horror movie. The premise is straight forward- a group of juvenile offenders and their keeper out on a camping trip are picked off one by one by a mysterious and ruthless killer with a crossbow a pack of attack dogs and a skill for booby traps. It is brutal, violent, fast moving and visceral. It is quite well made- the tension and pace never drops, which is essential for this kind of movie and there is a gritty, unremitting feel to the movie which works in its favour. The deaths are unpleasant and violent and the characters aren't likable keeping it somewhat unpredictable as to what is going to happen, who is going to die and so on. Wilderness doesn't hold back in terms of the violence and nastiness but still keeps, for the most part a gritty realistic vibe and it works.

The movie shows you don't necessarily need likable characters but only believable ones to make a movie work. The more likable characters are only more likable by comparison i.e. they are only cowardly or selfish as opposed to being sadistic and cruel. The one character that seems like they may actually be competent and a decent human being is out of the picture comparatively early on. This comes across as lot more credible than those movies which contain groups of supposedly hardened criminals or delinquents who prove to be suitably heroic and noble and band together when it comes to the crunch. The characters here aren't over the top nasty either- they are full of petty meanness and posturing, selfishness and banality without being irredeemably evil as you would probably expect such kids to be in real life. The acting, mostly by fairly unknown young British actors is pretty good and low key- the Brits are generally better at this sort of thing. This gives the film its grittier edge and helps make it a little bit less predictable than it could be. Okay, the designated hero is obvious from the get-go and it isn't too unexpected when most of the unsavoury cast is wiped out but it isn't cloyingly obvious all the way through that things will happened the way you would predict in accordance with movie conventions.

The movie is not without flaws. The plot isn't always particularly believable or fresh. It seems strange that there is on one prison guard with this group of about ten juvenile offenders out on a supposedly deserted island and the killer seems almost too effective is dispatching his prey although to be fair it works for the movie in terms of the scariness of the villain and some explanation is provided for his skill in this regard. Toward the end when the hunter and his motivation is revealed he is far less effective a bad guy, his motivation and presence slightly contrived (Though still plausible) and he suddenly seems to become a lot less competent in order for him to be defeated. It might have been better if the makers had left the killer a mysterious motiveless figure. There are a few times when the movie does seem to go a bit too far with its nastiness, the flip side of the movie slack of restraint. The way in which some of the gorier death scenes, such as the first dog killing, are lingered on is a bit too much and toward the end some of the character's abhorrent behaviour comes across as a bit much also (Okay we already knew these guys were scum, can we get on with it).

On the whole a slick, well made and exciting movie which is both helped and hampered, but mostly helped, by it's willingness to be mean spirited and harsh.

I enjoyed this movie for the most part, but thought the writing/dialog was a little weak at points. I honestly think one of the cheesiest moments in movie history was in this particular movie when the guy offered up a hunk of fresh cooked dog meat to his girl.. and she hugged him gleefully...

But anyways, the idea of the movie was pretty cool and I enjoyed the beginning and how they ended up on the island. In the tradition of No Escape and Battle Royale, this is a great addition to the 'island survival' genre but is by no means a stand out.

Definitely give it a watch if the synopsis interests you!

Wilderness isn't a great modern horror film, but it does a good job of taking old ideas and rehashing them into a fresh and exciting plot line. The influences to the film are clear, with the much-copied classic 'The Most Dangerous Game' being fused with more modern films such as 'Battle Royale'. The basic plot line isn't too far removed from your common slasher film, but director Michael J. Bassett gives him film an extra edge by putting the focus on the struggle as the protagonists battle with the wilderness (naturally), the main threat and even each other. The plot focuses on a group of juvenile delinquents who are sent to an uninhabited island when a young lad staying in their home is found to have committed suicide. However, the island doesn't turn out to be uninhabited at all, as aside from a local hermit; there's also a group of girls there with the same idea - and some mad psycho with a crossbow and a group of bloodthirsty German Shepherds, who is seemingly hell bent on not letting any of them off the island alive!

The director seems more bothered about atmosphere and tension than characters; as while some of the people inhabiting the film are well defined, their actions are often questionable and none of them are particularly interesting. But even so, this isn't a problem; as the film is constantly suspenseful and the fact that there is an unseen psycho in the woods bodes well with the atmosphere on display. Michael J. Bassett seems keen to go against the clichés of the horror genre, as there is no mystery to the killer's identity after the first half of the film and the crossbow weapon works well. There's a fair amount of gore on display, although the film never matches the initial death sequence in the wilderness in terms of gore. The acting isn't terrible, but the 'thick' British accents sound really phoney to an actual Brit like me. Sean Pertwee is the only recognised name on the cast list, but the rest of the cast; which is made up of mostly British television stars, provide adequate performances. Overall, Wilderness is certainly a good horror film and comes recommended.

It's a decent survival thriller.

The actors do a good job, even though the characters are not all that very well developed. Monetheless everyone's motivations are clear enough.

The setting is isolated, as per the demands of the genre and the violence is suiably desperate and gory.

It holds no major surprises but I found it well worth watching.

A bunch of teenage delinquents are taken to a remote British island in order to 'build character', but are picked off by an unseen assailant in a variety of gruesome ways.

Wilderness, a violent British made survivalist horror, is another clunker from director Michael J. Bassett, the man who gave us the decidedly lame WW1 chiller Deathwatch. Once again, Bassett presents us with another poorly thought out movie saddled with a ridiculous conceit, a poor cast (when Sean Pertwee is the best actor on the bill, something is definitely up), and a very bad script.

Even if a large picturesque island paradise off the coast of the UK actually existed, the idea that it could possibly remain totally uninhabited is unbelievably daft. The thought that it would be reserved solely for the use of correctional facilities is absurd. And the notion that a group of violent offenders would be taken to said island accompanied by a single supervisor is totally moronic.

And with the majority of the movie's characters being juvenile scumbags and unlikable thugs, it is impossible to feel any sympathy for most of those who die. In fact, I was quite happy to see these miserable excuses for human beings get their comeuppance.

In an attempt to distract his audience from all of these shortcomings, Bassett piles on the gore, with maulings by savage dogs, crossbow attacks, dismemberment and immolation. But even a high level of impressively realistic bloodletting doesn't stop one from noticing that the film is basically a bit of a stinker.

Call us uncivilized savages if you must, but who honestly doesn't enjoy raw and barbaric adventure-movies in which the blood and violence literally bursts from the screen? In case you were thrilled by movies like "Battle Royale", "Blood Camp Thatcher" or even the more classic milestone "The Most Dangerous Game", you simply have to see "Wilderness"; a brand new British survival-horror effort directed by Michael "Deathwatch" Basset. After the suicide of a fellow inmate, a troop of juvenile delinquents – for whom all hope for rehabilitation was given up long time ago – are sent to a prison island for a severe lesson in elementary life-values. On the island, however, a mad-raving psychopath lies in wait for them and even the innocent guards and some random girls become defenseless targets. Trained and equipped like an experienced hunter, the killer annihilates nearly the whole gang by using deadly booby-traps and ravenous dogs. As you can derive from this brief plot description, originality isn't "Wilderness" biggest trump and the script doesn't even bother to keep the killer's identity secret for a long time. But seriously, who cares about aspects like these when a film is so adrenalin rushing and blood-soaked? The "hunting humans"-premise is mixed with the textbook 80's slasher plot of a revenge-seeking killer, but you aren't given a chance to grumble about the banality, as there is gore and excitement everywhere! The island itself is a captivating location, resulting in masterfully choreographed sequences and some utterly imaginative booby-traps. Unlike in his previous film "Deathwatch", Michael J. Basset definitely doesn't cut back on the blood & gore here, and we're gladdened with close-up shotgun action, amputated body parts, chopped of heads and loads of aggressive dog-action! The character drawings are very well processed and Basset fully uses the nihilistic and totally lackadaisical nature of youthful criminals. These young social outcasts don't care about anyone but themselves and pretty soon there are sub plots involving betrayal, jealousy and cowardly behavior. The sound & visual effects are terrific and Peter Robertson clearly has a talented eye for versatile camera-work. Following films like "Dog Soldiers", "28 Days Later…" and "The Descent", this "Wilderness" is yet another piece of evidence that the British horror industry is working on a remarkable revival nowadays. Highly recommended!

After a fellow inmate commits suicide due to the constant bullying and turning a blind eye of his fellow inmates. The young group are shipped off to a deserted island, to build character and bond. However they're not alone and someone with a crossbow and a pack of dogs begin to hunt them down.

Woodland horror. I love this sub-genre. However this particular British item builds an interesting story to only fumble it with half-baked revelations, obnoxious characters and splintered direction. The survival trek is filled with blood soaked surprises, jarring jolts, and a notorious mean streak. Yippy! Yeah some of the wicked deaths are ferocious, but it did become a bit boring. When director Michael J Bassett gets hot under the collar (after slowly milking it out to begin with), he engineers taut and breakneck tension to only let the lean story be navigated by implausible and contrived staples that eventually go on to cement a numbing and uneven pattern. The unmasking of the killer is flat (though its no surprise, and it never is because we find out just after it all begins), and the confrontation comes off lousy and underdone. The characters don't break away from their underwritten, clichéd persona's. They do become a sorry, and tiring bunch that you couldn't care less about. Sure they're not meant to be likable, but hell they really irritated me. But I guess that was the perfect mould though. The story stays firm and simple, going out hard. I have mixed emotions about it, but this is more towards its timing and pushy developments, and how it eventually went about trying to cover its lack of atmosphere with rapid, uncertain movements and bloated shocks. I thought the setting could've been implemented better. Peter J Robertson's professional camera-work gets some nice shots, and his location framing and adventurous style works off fine. The music by Mark Thomas features a foreboding sting. The performances are by the books. Sean Pertwee sits back, Alex Reid gives all her will to the part and Toby Kebbell neurotically goes through the motions. Stephen Wight is probably the pick of the lot as the seething bully skinhead.

In a juvenile detention center, the inmate Dave (John Travers) commits suicide after being abused with his friend Lindsay (Ben McKay) by the sociopath bullies Steve (Stephen Wight) and Lewis (Luke Neal) under the indifference of the other cell-mates. The governor sends them to an uninhabited island to improve their relationships and characters under the command of the tough monitor Jed (Sean Pertwee). They meet another camping with female delinquents under the command of veteran soldier Louise (Alex Reid) and they camp in another area. However, when they are attacked by a pack of dogs and a mysterious man with a cross-bow wearing camouflage, they join forces fighting to survive under the leadership of Callum (Toby Kebbell).

After a magnificent debut with "Deathwatch", the director and writer Michael J. Bassett makes another great movie, the gore "Wilderness". The original story is well-constructed, with a perfect development of characters and supported by great acting and special effects. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): "Os Selvagens" ("The Savages")

Do not watch this movie if you are looking for a message, unless that message is that revenge is sweet. Most of the movie is a bloodfest and the special effects are graphic - not something to be watched alone if you scare easily. Michael Bassett seems to have gone solely for shock value in this movie and, if he did, then he achieved his aims admirably. In fact, I cannot recall the last time I saw a movie so openly graphic in terms of dismemberment and human death. The actors are clearly not hugely experienced and this adds somewhat to the atmosphere of the film. If you seek a true horror in terms of what is portrayed on the screen then this is the movie for you, although personally I found it a little over the top.

Wilderness is directed by Michael J. Bassett and written by Dario Poloni. It stars Sean Pertwee, Alex Reid, Toby Kebbell, Karly Greene, Stephen Wight & Lenora Crichlow.

After the suicide of one of their inmates at a British male young offender institution, a group of teenage offenders and their prison officer, are sent to a remote island for outdoor rehabilitation. Once there, tho, they find that they are not alone as two young female offenders and their officer are also using the island for the same purpose. A battle of the sexes is the least of their collective worries, however, because someone is stalking them. With only one thing on their mind; to kill them all.

Chances are that if you pull ten reviews off of the internet for Wilderness you will find in most of them references to Scum, Dog Soldiers, Battle Royale and Deliverance. Which while it comes across as lazy pigeon-holing, is a fair enough point to make. However, Wilderness, while not being as good as any of those film's, deserves to be allowed to stand on its own two feet with survivalist heart proudly beating in its chest. Yes the story is a touch derivative, but Bassett's film is pleasingly nasty and serves the gore hounds well. After the set up introduces us to the inmates of this wing of Moorgate Prison, where the moody Callum (Kebbell) walks into a den of bullying and suicide, it's clear that these are not characters we are meant to like. This collective bunch consists of robbers, murderers and sex offenders. As a group of people they are as unlikable as it gets, this works a treat once we get to the island and things start to go belly up as they come under attack from an unseen assailant and start to turn on each other in the process. Who do you root for? Eh? Exactly.

With the characters' struggle to bond together to survive, we have the reason why Wilderness should be fairly judged on its own terms. Leaving aside for the moment that it contains inventive and grisly deaths, that it thrusts these young hot-headed adults into a Lord of the Fliesian (there's another one for you) type situation makes for a fascinating watch. Particularly as the sense of dread that lands on the island with the protagonists never leaves the film. There's also a wry observational arc on the British institutional system, we may be ducking from crossbow bolts and snarling German Shephard's, but Bassett and his team are not just about the blood. No sir. Even as Poloni's misanthropic script starts to bite hard, there's still some humour to be found, while Alex Reid's (underused but making a telling mark) tough female ex-soldier is the smartest character in the film. To call this a blood for bloods sake movie like some critics have is just unfair, since some thought has gone into making it exactly not that.

Bassett considerably improves from his debut horror picture, Deathwatch. But Wilderness does have problems to stop it from being a top tier British horror. There's bad decisions made with a couple of the most interesting characters and the reveal of the killer is far too soon. There's also some pacing problems that are further highlighted by some of the average acting from the lesser principals left to carry the story. However, steering us away from dwelling too long on the young bucks caught in the headlights is Kebbell, who oozes charisma as Callum, the character is in truth not fully formed (his moody past is only briefly touched upon), but Kebbell plays him smart yet dangerously feral; a leader in waiting indeed. But it's Wight's turn as a bullyboy Nazi that runs away with the film. He's as dangerous as the person hunting them down, the last person you would want to have to rely upon in a crisis. He is a vile and nasty piece of work that Bassett enjoys playing the audience's sympathies with.

At times brutal and even unforgiving as a human interest piece, Wilderness is a far better survivalist horror than some would have you believe. 7/10

After the death of a young inmate, those associated with him are sent to an island to learn some hard facts of life, but on the island a killer with a crossbow waits for them.

A group of people are sent to an island, and one by one they die at the hand of an unknown killer, sounds like And then there were none right, wrong, Wilderness is a quirky British horror thriller, with a strong cast, decent production, and a few twists and turns.

I'd all but forgotten about this film, until it popped up on a list of lesser known Halloween goodies, I enjoyed it, it's maybe a little rough around the edges, but it's definitely entertaining.

Great start, strong ending, it maybe loses some of its focus on the middle, but overall I would definitely recommend it.

A great cast, plenty of faces you'll recognise, and of course there's the wonderful Sean Pertwee to enjoy.

7/10.

Here we have a bunch of obnoxious teenagers getting brutally murdered by a revenging father. No problem there - had they all been killed in the first 20 minutes. Unfortunately, the viewer has to suffer the most appalling acting I've seen outside infant school, dodgy camera work, naive direction, and a dreadful sound track.

The emotions portrayed by this motley bunch of acting school drop-outs range from constipation to hysteria, with little inbetween. Had I been producing this movie I would have left the entire cast and crew on the island, along with some wolves and bears, thus doing the film industry a tremendous service.

Sean Pertwee reprisals his role in Dog Soldiers by putting himself on the canine menu once again, and Alex Reid plays the tough guy, though I think she's a girl. Not much else to say, really.

This is strictly a revenge in the woods formula movie. There are no surprises. The character development is weak, and none of the characters could draw sympathy from his own mother. In other words, who lives and who dies makes little difference. I definitely recommend seeing "Wilderness" with the English subtitles option on, otherwise American viewers will be somewhat bewildered by the dialects. The gore effects are pretty good, and the storyline maintains interest, but the movie would have benefited greatly by casting at least one delinquent you could root for. Overall a rating of 6.0 seems about right for "Wilderness" - MERK

I won't say much here because I don't want to drop spoilers.

The main reason I can't rate this any higher is simply because there's nobody in the movie that's actually a likeable character.

Not one. Everyone is either annoying or a total jerk. I assume it's on purpose but it just makes me not care what happens to any of them.

Recipe: take one large dollop of Lord of the Flies, toss in a few heaping tablespoons of Southern Comfort, sprinkle with traces of Deliverance, and add The Most Dangerous Game to taste. Blend on high for 110 minutes and presto, you've got a tasty treat of Wilderness, the new survival thriller by Director Michael J. Bassett.

Set on a remote uninhabited island used by Britain's correctional services as a retreat for troubled youth, the movie tells the story of a group of juvenile criminals who get sent to the remote location only to find themselves being stalked by a trained killer bent on revenge.

Screened at the 2006 edition of Montreal's Fantasia Film Festival, the movie doesn't make much effort to conceal the identity of the stalker. In fact, most viewers can figure this out in the first 15 minutes. However keeping secrets isn't what this story is about. Rather, it's about the thrill of hunting humans, the most sophisticated predator on the planet, and the diverse and innovative tricks involved.

Featuring Sean Pertwee, who seems to own a clause in British movie contracts saying he will appear in every UK thriller/horror film under production, the film showcases the talents of a young cast of unknowns who, while not demanded of Shakespearean performances, nonetheless turn in flawless performances to round out the movie.

Bassett, whose previous directorial debut was 2002's intriguing but flawed Deathwatch, seems to have found his stride with this effort. Scenes appear carefully thought out and executed, with a nice attention to detail. He clearly understands how to pace a film of this nature, and what works and what doesn't in what clearly was a demanding shoot involving attack dogs, forest chases, fires and numerous stunts.

The movie has something for every fan of the genre; beheadings, vicious forest traps, maulings, being eaten alive, crossbows, knife fights, skinheads, near drownings, the list goes on.

Viewers can add this to the ever growing list of British horror films such as The Descent, Dog Soldiers, and 28 Days Later (to name only a few) that are currently setting the world standard for delivering quality cinematic chills and thrills.

This movie has "Dog Soldiers" soul. A lot of scenes are from "Dog Soldiers", but this one is more interesting. It makes survival horror go up one generation. The tagline says true (It's not about revenge. It's about punishment), but you will know what I'm talking about if you watched it.

Actors looks like prisoners, so that makes this movie be more real. They acted very good too. They very empathize in they roles. Script was interesting. Idea was a little bit copied from "Dog Soldiers", but I think, that this is not a huge problem, that makes this movie bad.

I give to this movie 7/10

I just saw this English horror movie Wilderness,the movie can easily compare with other horror movies like Saw and Holster,all movies contains a lot of blood scenes,well I don't mind as a horror fan! The movies starts in prison with pretty young boys there,when one of that boys play suicide they are dropped on a desert.... island and the hell will start! The story couldn't however not really amuse me,especially the plot was for me pretty disappointed

Also the movie doesn't contain any joke or something,even the best horror movies have a laugh!,its pretty black movie

Maybe I enjoyed more the extra's on DVD where you can see how they make AL bloody moments in movie

I still recommend this movie to watch,just enjoy bloody moments,its well made!

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