Review of Backcountry (2015) by Jeanduchamp — 18 Nov 2015

Strange enough, I rather enjoyed it, except for the bear, I didn't like it. The bear is the feeblest point, it spoils everything - I mean not a romantic trip, but the movie itself - an utterly unconvincing, stupid, deliberately cruel, but irrational and compulsive bear. It wasn't realistic, in my view. Would it be some unnatural creature, some ghost, zombie, werewolf, lycanthrope, shapeshifter, bad magician and so on, well then - it would be quite a natural and convincing behavior for an unnatural magical shapeshifting zombie-ghost etc. But not for a live creature.

Well, bears may attack people, they may harm or even kill them, but the way the killer-bear is doing it in this movie raises many questions: Why to track just this couple for miles and miles on, if there are plenty of other people in the the forest and a lot of animals? Why not to kill them at once, why to loiter and what to wait for? Why to kill only one and not both of them? If it was so hungry - why didn't it finish eating a deer or whatever it was? Why,if being so obsessed with human flesh ( if it's the case), not to go near places where there are plenty of it, why to stay in some remote area where chances to meet the coveted food are so negligible? If it's protecting something, than what exactly, a hollow in the ground? Doesn't sound convincing... In short - I let for experienced zoologists these tricky matters to puzzle out, for me all this bear stuff looks like a bungle.

As for the rest - not so bad. The forest is picturesque but disagreeable, people are silly just to the point to be convincing. Sadly enough there wasn't any snakes and harmful ants, but here one may have an easy explanation - all these tricks were just held back for a sequel.