Backwoods

I saw this picture this morning and was not disappointed or surprised. It was exactly what you would think from a made for tv horror movie. Editing was poor, characters were meh, and overall experience was not worth the waste of home internet data usage.

This movie was absolutely terrifying. I'm sure it'll run through my mind when I drive through some of those back-woods places. The characters were grotesque and I don't think I'll *ever* watch this movie again, but it served its purpose. I don't know whether it was a cold room or getting the bejesus scared out of me, but i shivered quite a bit. Right off hand I'm gonna tell that this movie isn't anything you haven't seen before. It has a typical horror movie set up: a bunch of young people in the woods in the backcountry of some state who run into a bunch of psychos who want to hunt them down and butcher them. If you're thinking " wow, that sounds a lot like the Texas Chain Saw Massacre", well, you'd be thinking right. There's even a gas station scene with a weird creepy hick. But I'm not trying to convey the message that is a Chain saw Massacre rip-off. Texas Chain Saw Massacre was awesome, so I see no problem in people wanting to make more movies like it. But anyways, Backwoods offers nothing new to genre, it's just a plain good ole slice 'em and dice 'em popcorn horror flick. It's not trying to be exceptional, it's just trying be a horror film with enough blood, gore and thrills to suffice any horror fan for the 84 duration time, and in that context, it succeeds.

With the opening credits being as awful as they were with the terrible music, and blurred shaky cam, and knowing its a theme that's been done a lot before I thought it'd be truly awful. I thought I'd be 1 star for sure!

It's a B-Movie for sure, and with the women being caught "for breeding" it's not the best nor the most original film about, but it's watchable and entertaining. It's not overly cheesy once it gets going. The actors are decent enough, honestly I was expecting worse.

It has some nice touches for making sense. It's a company retreat, they thought the other team was being over competitive when some stuff started to not add up. They try to be sensible and call for help.

Released to TV in 2008, "Backwoods" stars Haylie Duff and Ryan Merriman as employees of a video game company in Los Angeles partaking in paint ball games on a company retreat. They're mistaken for Federal agents by a Waco-like religious cult who apprehend young women to impregnate. Havoc ensues. Craig Zimmerman plays the company leader and Deborah Van Valkenburgh the matriarch of the cult. Mimi Michaels and Willow Geer are on hand as female eye candy. There are many others; too numerous to cite.

The movie plays like a mishmash of "Wrong Turn" (2003), "Hostel" (2005) and similar movies, but is limited by its TV budget and constraints. Amazingly, production-wise it's on par with "Wrong Turn" (which wasn't anything great to begin with, but it was at least passably good) and, as a result, has better women, locations and music, but a weaker script and blasé filmmaking. To be more specific about the positives: The opening & closing metalized song is excellent; the cast is good, highlighted by Willow's curvy beauty and Duff's striking features; and, like I said, the wilderness locations are great.

Unfortunately, the movie often plays in a routine and not-thought-out way. For instance, would the cult advertise the entrance to their secret underground compound with can't-miss-them concrete entrances and air vents? Wouldn't they more likely make these features blend-in with the environment? Would a guy impaled by several wooden spikes be able to shoot a rifle at the hip as accurately as shown? Also, the ending leaves one element up in the air and reflects an all-around absence of imagination. Still, if you like the redneck slasher genre there are enough positives here to make it worth checking out. Just bear in mind that when the most imperative question about a movie is "Who's the hot redhead at the beginning?" it's not a good sign.

The movie runs 85 minutes and it looks like it was shot in wilderness areas in greater Los Angeles (but I can't confirm it).

GRADE: C

A team of FBI agents go on retreat in a California forest preserve, playing paintball as a training exercise. But the team is not alone, being surrounded by rednecks, inbreds and survivalists. What could have been harmless fun has now become a lesson in living.

The director of this film apparently grew up in the modern MTV world. He fills his shots with beautiful people and generic rock music. Not that I object to beautiful women or rock music generally, but this Michael Bay style of filming is style over substance, which gives the audience just that: a pretty shell with a hollow, rotten center. This film will be forgotten before it is even done being viewed.

And I know I've complained about his before, but... rednecks and hillbillies? Have we not done this to death? It's bad enough to make yet another movie about this... but then we have to make them all deformed looking? I think I've seen that film enough times. Sure, here we have California instead of the Appalachian Mountains, which is a change of venue... but it's the same old story. Oh, and now it's FBI agents. So, I guess, um, that's different.

No need to give this one a more full review. It's a cheesy knock-off, forgettable film. We get plenty of eye candy from Haylie Duff (but no nudity), but this doesn't really make a film worth owning and maybe not even worth watching. Not a horrible film, mind you, just nothing special.