The Hike

A group of women on a girls trip in the woods run across some unsavory characters and end up having to fight for their lives. It's been done before, and better. The girlfriends don't seem to have a believable bond and it's hard to care about any of the characters and there's at least one character you think is going to provide a pivotal moment who just sort of disappears. The only truly interesting thing about The Hike is how it implies some pretty terrible things are gonna go down but then it handles them in the tamest way possible. I don't want to give details but if you end up ignoring all the other reviews and actually watch this movie, it will probably strike you as a bit odd as well.

This really is a truly awful film. Girls go camping together in completely inappropriate clothing, so one is warned this is going to go badly wrong. Sadistic, gratuitous violence seems to be glorified with no plot justification, other than the glorification of gratuitous violence. This really dredges the deepest pits of human depravity, supposedly in the name of entertainment, as there is no moral compass in this film whatever, it is sickeningly depraved, though well shot and with plenty of tension, but tension only caused by the incipient nastiness which runs virtually throughout. Best avoided at all cost. I wish I knew it was this bad before watching.

THE HIKE is another nastiness-in-the-woods slice of British horror. The template for this one seems to be EDEN LAKE, which is ripped off continuously, particularly at the climax. The storyline involves a group of girls who decide go off on a trip into the deepest darkest woods (shades of THE DESCENT in the group dynamics) only to run foul of some nasty blokes for whom rape and murder is the order of the day.

There's one decent twist in this film's storyline but the rest of it is a complete dud if I'm honest. Like a lot of modern horror flicks, THE HIKE mistakes unpleasantness for scares, and watching women being raped and abused isn't much fun. The brooding set-up is effective enough but the second half falls apart completely. The whole thing is shot in the dark with lots of shaky-cam work as interchangeable characters run around and kill or are killed in turn. You won't give a damn what's going on because by this stage the storyline has dwindled away and the viewer is left watching cheapjack trash.

I have seen some great survival horror films over the last few years, Resurrection County, Frontiers, Rogue River, I spit on your grave ( 2010 ) and Eden Lake to name a few. This one is the low point of this horror sub-genre. The acting and locations were good, it was just nothing scary about our antagonists. No back story, no character development and no suspense to speak of. Dull and boring that seemed longer then its 82 minute running time. I didn't buy into any of this and the ending is sooooo transparent and you can feel it coming from a mile away. If your lucky stay miles away from this film. Garbage!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Disgusting flick, cannot be watched without feeling nauseated. Waste of money, time, and brain-cells. Despicable human beings doing despicable acts on others. Low life entertainment - there is no plot or sense in this movie. The worst part is that it is pretentious enough to pose as a real film.

It is hard to decide what is more torturous -- the gratuitous and pornographic depictions of torture, or the consciousness that you are sitting and watching such a grotesque depictions of low human behavior. The motivation of the killers make no sense. No idea why they turn out to be seemingly nice guys but in fact they are serial killers.

The only interesting thing is the twist at the end. But it is also quite predictable -- it is the same as in all the horror flicks which emanate and glorify evil.

Full frontal male nudity -- a bonus feature in this sadistic piece of... Writing this review is to warn other viewers, otherwise it is not worth my time. Make sure you FF otherwise your time will be fully wasted. I did that but I still feel violated by the scenes I had to endure while skipping. Two thumbs down for the director, writer and the poor cast.