Hillwalkers

This was not a horror movie to me. It wasn't really good. The actors/acting wasn't great. The movie had no suspense or thrills to it. You could really figure out what was about to happen in every scene.

There were actually done funny parts in the movie. And I never found out who the girl was at the start of the movie. Could be because I lost interest in the movie and started doing other things.

I wouldn't watch it again. It wasn't a total waste to me at least I was able to read and reply to some emails while this movie was on.

I read that some have compared this to Wrong Turn. It's not the same.

My four points are for the beautiful actresses. Otherwise, the story is a silly one. Three strong women and two weak men are on a trek through the wilderness and one of the men somehow gets a large splinter stuck in his leg. Uh oh; they ignore a no trespassing sign and the predictable bad men arrive and make life difficult for the group. The final ten minutes are ridiculous. Avoid Hillwalkers.

I have no issue with small budget films and in some ways the director did a good job. I certainly felt that the landscape and decent cinematography were going to make for an atmospheric and tense thriller. Unfortunately, that wasn't the case here due to poor writing which failed to create sympathetic characters or deliver any tension whatsoever.

As a previous reviewer pointed out, the real problem I had was during the hikers' initial encounter with the farmers. I am unsure why there was an attempt to create unrealistic and unwarranted tension here because it would just never play out like that. And, why does the supposedly strong and assertive woman let the feeble chap lead the negotiations when she has said she will do exactly the opposite just minutes before? A woeful scene that made no sense.

Sadly, none of the characters are even remotely believable and are, largely, so dislikable, that you don't route for any of them. Of course, suspension of disbelief is often required for this type of film, but there are just so many gaping plot holes and nonsensical elements that it was too much for me to engage with on any level.

Where you can see the small budget.

The actors and the story are not convincing.

All in all, a very weak film.

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This is now, officially, my personal pet peeve about most movies: they have a lot going for them in a very narrow, familiar genre fashion, but then waste it by not making any effort to be original, or intelligent when the plot or action finally kicks in. As if it doesn't matter what they do after a certain point, as if anyone watching the film won't care if it's stops making sense or becomes so downright stereotypical and bland and DUMB that it's kind of an insult. This film starts fairly good (for such a well worn genre convention: city folks go into country and find danger), nothing exceptional by any stretch but the actors do alright with rather dull characters, the cinematography is amazing and the countryside is awesome. Pretty by the book (one character is "strong" and overcoming cancer so you might guess who's gonna survive) but I was interested. They even make a point of what amazing negotiators these folks are so I was expecting that might come into play when they run afoul of the local loonies. But no. It actually just gets forgotten and how they behave from their first meeting on is basically guaranteed to allow the stupid, predictable plot to unfold after that. Very quickly the best thing about the film becomes the interplay between the locals which is amusing in a believable fashion and, thank god, not played broadly for laughs! Their performances are also the best, and if only the script didn't let them down when it came to what happens this film might have been a real winner. They had everything they needed to make a successful genre entry except the ability (or willingness) to fix a mediocre script that falls apart in the last half. It's one thing to suggest the city folks are ill equipped to deal with survival at this level (see Deliverance) but this movie just has the characters become idiots. If you don't consider a directors job to include caring about the script, or character actions, you could say it's still handled well enough but all the good points the film earned in the beginning are wasted.