See, this is why I don’t go camping. In its opening half-hour (the film saves its explicit violence, including quite a bit of gore, for its final 30 minutes), “Backcountry” conjures up a series of terrors about being in the middle of nowhere — in this case, a Canadian forest.
Is the aggressive stranger with the survivalist knife following you? Are those sounds at night really acorns falling from trees? Has that deer carcass been slaughtered by an animal with large claws? And what exactly lurks outside the circle of light afforded by your campfire at night?
These wilderness anxieties are enhanced by the transparently empty bravado of Alex (Jeff Roop), who is dragging girlfriend Jenn (Missy Peregrym) in the direction of a remote lake, a place fondly (but not too exactly) remembered from his childhood.
When the script establishes that Alex is a struggling gardener while Jenn is a lawyer, it explains his tendency to overcompensate and his reluctance to be out-macho-ed by the rugged park ranger (Eric Balfour) who stops by their camp during their first night out.
Even though the movie struck me as a mostly hollow exercise, I will testify to effectiveness of director Adam MacDonald’s tricks. (One of his tricks comes at the beginning, with a claim that the film is based on a true story — evidently the film has a casual similarity to a real case of people attacked in a forest, but that’s about it.)
The ability to maintain a vague sense of unease is no small achievement, although MacDonald can’t avoid the letdown when the terror is made physical. The film also benefits from the determined presence of Missy Peregrym, a Hilary Swank-alike who seemed a cinch for Hollywood stardom after “Stick It” (2006) but has labored in Canadian TV ever since. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. This performance should put her on the map.
A map would’ve been useful for the characters in “Backcountry,” but then again the film’s plot is dependent on bad decision-making. That may be lazy screenwriting, but part of the movie’s point is 21st- century cluelessness about nature — Alex’s overconfidence, Jenn’s reliance on her smart phone — so of course these two would do dumb things.
“Backcountry” doesn’t reach the giddy heights of the masculine competition games of the David Mamet-scripted “The Bear,” but at least this thing isn’t as pretentious as “Wild.”
Sometimes you eat the bear, sometimes the bear eats you, as the philosopher Sam Elliott said. “Backcountry” succeeds by not straying far from that core belief.
“Backcountry” 2 1/2
A couple take a casual hike through the Canadian wilderness. Too casual, because a variety of terrors await — nicely tricked out by director Adam MacDonald, until the menace needs to become physical. The movie is a hollow exercise, but effective.
Rating: Not rated; probably R for violence, language
Showing: Grand Illusion theater
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