Backwoods

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 couple camping in the woods is attacked by mountainmen. The girl is abducted to be a breeder. Later, Johnny Dash organizes a paint ball corporate retreat for his workers at a video game company. The store clerk directs the group to the same area in the woods where the couple was taken. Soon, their paint ball game turns deadly and the group is imprisoned in the underground bunker where the locals manufacture drugs.

This is a standard low-grade horror. There is blood but not much gore. There is violence but not well done. The actors are mostly B-level as indicated by the presence of Haylie Duff. It's a functional cheap horror that has nothing new or special. It works but only barely. It is all relatively amateurish except for a few solid old-fashion burning and falling stunts.

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.

Yes, you've seen this many times before, "Hills Have Eyes" and "Texas Chainsaw" being the obvious models (albeit with a lot less gore). City folk road-trip to the country, are attacked by inbred survivalist-type family, etc. etc. But especially a movie you'd find free on youtube or hulu or whatever, this one is at least fast-paced, adequately acted, and so forth. You will forget it pronto, but you don't be bored, unless you're the kind of person who needs a whole lot of nudity and gore to stay awake.

OK, seriously, I need to include more lines to post this review? Once you see the movie, you'll understand why there isn't a whole lot to say about it.

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.