Review of Scarce (2008) by Jason D — 05 Jul 2009

Scarce is another retread of people getting stranded in the rough terrains of nature and battling against deranged hill folk. We've seen this scenario a thousand times over and, of course, there is no end in sight.

The best remedy is to sift through all of them to find the gems which, personally, I feel as though Scarce is one of them. Made by a group of ambitious Canadians, the story takes place in America, where three "Jersey" guys (who sound suspiciously Canadian, which added unintentional humor of this film) finish a snowboarding vacation in Colorado (where a decent amount sex, drugs, and booze ensued) and embark on a road trip through the states until becoming lost in the rough, wintery forests of Pennsylvania where they wreck and come across a kindly woodsman who later proves to be very unkind.

In fact, I will give a hint by saying the title references the food sources in that particular area. I'm sure one could guess where that leads to. The three guys are then put through the ringer as their tortured by the woodman, and some of his neighbors, in various gruesome and inventive ways.

I loved the way the film was shot, very vintage and with an 80's feel. The overabundance of gore was also a plus, being an avid gorehound. The acting was spotty at times (what horror film doesn't have that?), but overall, the cast was fairly enjoyable.

I actually felt for the good guys for once and rooted for them to survive. Two of the three guys (Jesse T. Cook and John Geddes) worked their butts off to not only star in this demanding film (their willingness to shoot those scenes in the low temperature blizzards with barely any clothes on is a great sign of dedication to their work and shows they weren't afraid to really work for it), but also to write and produce it.

Overall, I gotta say I judged a book by its cover and wound up being very wrong for it. This is an ambitious and fun low budget film that really delivered for me. I absolutely loved it.