Written By: Jase Marsiglia
“Hey, wanna burn a couple of vacation days sleeping on the ground outside?” asks comedian Jim Gaffigan, regarding someone’s excitement about camping. “What if I told you that you get to crap standing up in the woods? My parents never took me camping. You know why? Because they loved me!”
Say what you will about the beauty of nature, but Gaffigan’s jokes ring true. Camping is not for everyone. You need a certain verve to want to roll out a sleeping bag inside a tent and sleep in the woods with the very real, very looming threat that anything from bobcats, coyotes, wolves, and bears could be lurking around, hunting for food. You are in their territory, after all.
Less likely, of course, is the chance of being seized upon by the inbred, disfigured psychotics who prowl out there, too. Less likely, but not impossible. In the horror genre, camping serves one purpose: feeding unlucky characters to the elements. Usually, it is a fifty-fifty shot between man versus beast and man versus, well, “mountain” man. The latter is what we are dealing with this weekend, on the anniversary of a made-for-television thriller that aired this day in 2008 on the now-defunct Spike TV. So roll up your gear and maybe pack a firearm alongside those paintball guns, you know, just in case, as we venture into the dense foliage of the woods.
Backwoods (2008)
⭐⭐
The classic philosophical question of whether a tree falling in the woods makes a sound if no one is around to hear it has existed for well over a century. Horror philosophy might ask something similar, only more along the lines of this: when a group of campers are slaughtered and raped in the woods by a family of inbred, disfigured mountain locals, is anyone surprised?
The plot centers on a group of sporting goods employees roped into one of those dismal team-building exercises meant to strengthen their work ethos. Heading into the Jasper Woodlands of northern California, unaware that a young couple were recently attacked there, one killed and one captured and raped, the dozen or so employees include their cocky CEO Johnny (Craig Zimmerman), his office squeeze Lee (Haylie Duff of “Vote for Summer!” fame), overly competitive Perry (Titanic’s Danny Nucci), and Adam (the always likable Ryan Merriman from "Final Destination 3"), who is more of a “let’s not and say we did” kind of guy. Their goal is to test out new state-of-the-art paintball equipment.
Once there, they set up camp, get some sleep, and split into teams to wage paintball war the next day. As personalities clash, they soon must rely on one another to survive when they are ruthlessly surrounded and attacked by members of a rural commune. The group is led by “Mother” (Too Close for Comfort star Deborah Van Valkenburgh), her husband Ricks, with an S, played by "Aliens"’ Mark Rolston, posing as a park ranger, and enforced by a lumbering, cleft-lipped brute named Josiah (House of 1000 Corpses’ Robert Allen Mukes). The able-bodied women are kidnapped and, at Mother’s behest, raped by Josiah to breed new members of the congregation. If your mind breaks and you conform via Stockholm Syndrome, all the better.
Director Martin Weiss’ "Backwoods" does manage to differentiate itself from being just another hillbilly horror flick in a few ways. The creepy religious commune angle is darker than the usual drooling, deformed redneck stereotype, and while this deviation from "Wrong Turn" territory is refreshing, the action and suspense still feel familiar. Characters are chased through trees, impaled on traps, shot with arrows, and hunted by pickup trucks when they finally reach a paved road, but it never amounts to much more than that.
Merriman and Duff do solid work, Nucci is given a respectable character arc, and Mimi Michaels delivers an effective performance of pure panic as one of the kidnapped women. Her final moments are both sad and chilling. Still, it feels like the subgenre has long since reached its creative peak, and Backwoods makes little effort to argue otherwise.
Running time: 84 minutes.
USA. Rated R.
Larry Levinson Productions.
Home Video
In the United States, there is only one release, a bare-bones DVD from Genius Entertainment. A Blu-ray was released in Germany under the title "Jasper Park" by Sunfilm Entertainment in 2010, though there is no indication it offered anything more substantial than the domestic release. As of this review, the film remains out of print.
Bits and Pieces
No sequels or remakes as of this review.
Traum A Meter: 2 out of 4.
Most of the violence is presented in an action film style, with CGI blood spatter from gunshots, and the sexual assaults are implied rather than shown.
Today’s Jam: “Long Road to Ruin” by Foo Fighters topped the charts the week "Backwoods" aired, and the title feels oddly appropriate.
This Episode’s Moral
Team building exercises might sound like a great way to boost morale, but maybe just do not do them in the woods.
1 comment
Solid review. This is a definite pass for me. I don’t like when movies or shows use rape as a plot point.