The Backwoods (2006)

The story-telling is good with flashbacks.The film is both funny and heartbreaking. You smile in a scene and get a soulcrushing revelation in the next.

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

This movie tries so hard to be funny, yet it falls flat every time. Just another example of recycled ideas repackaged with women in an attempt to appeal to a certain audience.

The movie's not perfect, but it sticks the landing of its message. It was engaging - thrilling at times - and I personally thought it was a great time.

Sometime in the 1970s, two Englishmen and their Spanish wives hope to overcome the difficulties in their relationships with a vacation at a family home in rural Basque country. When the guys go hunting and rescue a young girl held captive in an abandoned farmhouse, it's only a matter of time before the locals come looking for her. 'Bosque de Sombras' clearly takes Peckinpah's 'Straw Dogs' as its model, exploring the same themes of power and masculinity through a sexually provocative wife and her weak and ineffectual husband. Only the psycho-sexual dynamic is played out against the unspoken backdrop of Franco's dictatorship instead of the Vietnam War. Unfortunately, these socio-political underpinnings, which made Peckinpah's 1971 classic so powerful, are lost in 'Bosque de Sombras' not only through the lack of any real sense of the era but a reluctance to define the characters in the broad strokes necessary for political commentary. Even the attempt itself begs the question: just how relevant is a critique of the insular superstitions of Franco's Spain? So we're left with a pretty routine genre thriller of backwoods crazies running amok. The cast and crew do an excellent job (particularly the always brilliant Oldman), the forest locations are beautifully ripe and foreboding, and the movie is suspenseful and thoroughly entertaining, but any attempts to achieve something greater are ultimately held back by a screenplay that dares not deliver on its thematic philosophy.

I've got a weak spot for hicksploitation thrillers about demented crackers hunting humans out in the sticks for fun. Here's an interesting Spanish made variant of the formula with a few interesting twists and an appropriately somber, amoral ending. Because it's a Spanish made production that dwells on the tragedy of the story it's not quite the guilty pleasure fun of the classic OPEN SEASON (1974), lacks the poignancy of DELIVERANCE (1972), and doesn't come close to the barbarity of STRAW DOGS (1971), which are the films it is most obviously patterned to resemble. If you are looking for a contemporary film that homages those, look no further.I checked the spoiler warning just so I could complain about one element of the story, though I will leave it as a surprise for those who do choose to seek this movie out -- which I do recommend. But there's one scene where a major character resigns himself to an unwholesome fate and the direction sets it up to suggest that he manages to escape it somehow. Which turns out not to be the case, making the moment into a fake red herring of sorts: If you are going to set up a surprise ending, why fake the audience out and not spring the surprise? The film's premise is solid: A group of Anglo tourists travel back to Gary Oldman's family estate in the outbacks of Spain, two couples that is and naturally both of the women are attractive. They stop at a local pub long enough to rip off the scene from STRAW DOGS about American cigarettes, and then move into their hunting cabin, constructed by a set designer who had studied OPEN SEASON for hints on how to dress the set. The men then set off on a hunting expedition inspired by DELIVERANCE, and quite by accident stumble upon a most disturbing surprise, a young girl apparently kept captive in sub-human conditions, and debate whether to take her to the authorities.They take the waif home & clean her up, then the next morning the local Spanish hicks show up, armed to the teeth, and ask if they have come across a young girl who has gone missing. Interesting. There's a lot of melodrama about the couples being somewhat dysfunctional and some appropriate machismo posturing, and before you know it the two groups are waging war in the forests. Which includes an obligatory home invasion sequence that was particularly distasteful as it objectified one of the women in a way that was profoundly creepy by keeping her half clothed & sort of inviting the mind to fill in the rest. Either the director was trying to keep it classy & misfired, or he's even more twisted than one might think.What the film has going for it is the unique Spanish scenery and a non-conformity to formula. The ending is anything but what you'll be expecting no matter how many of these "humans hunting humans" things you may have seen. It's also exceedingly well made with some interesting musical contributions by Leonard Cohen, who is apparently quite popular in Spain, and some impressive widescreen cinematography that alludes to various Spaghetti Westerns at times. The main gripe I have with the flick is that it lacks a sense of humor or the sly wit that gives OPEN SEASON especially it's legendary status as a cult favorite. THE BACKWOODS is merely twisted + emotionally devastating by comparison, and while there's nothing wrong with that it's probably going to be one of those films you should see once but probably won't need your own copy of, because it's such a total downer. A good downer though, and for fans of Gary Oldman a must see.6/10

I'm seriously confused about how to properly write a critique on "The Backwoods" without being either overly negative or positive, but nevertheless express my respect to the cast and crew for the film they intended to make. This is a genuine throwback to the era of 70's exploitation film-making, with a truly grim atmosphere and uncompromising violence, but at the same time it's completely unoriginal and derivative. I've read an extended interview with writer/director Koldo Serra, in which he declares that he doesn't understand why so many horror movies are being remade nowadays even though the originals aren't open for any kind of improvement. That might very well be true, and Lord knows I wholeheartedly agree with such a statement, but Serra goes so far in 'bringing homage' to the original classics that he practically copies them as well. "The Backwoods" isn't a remake of any existing 70's flick, but it easily could have been, since it bluntly borrows elements from "Deliverance", "Straw Dogs" and "The Wild Bunch". Cleverly set in the year 1978, so that the script at least didn't had to take into account malfunctioning mobile phones and navigation systems losing their signal, "The Backwoods" revolves on two couples spending a little vacation deep in nearly impenetrable woods of the Spanish Basque region. Paul, the oldest and wisest of the four, bought the old house of his grandmother there and wants to show the beautiful region to his wife and friends. After some very unfriendly welcoming vibes in the local bar already, the quartet faces the ultimate confrontation with the primitive backwoods community when Paul and Norman discover a neglected young girl chained up in a hidden cabin. The girl is the outgrowth of a humiliating family scandal, and the local patriarch Paco so desperately want to keep her existence secret that he mobilizes the rest of the locals for an old-fashioned manhunt. "The Backwoods" is an uneven mishmash of a film in which downright powerful sequences are altered with dreadful clichés and predictable plot twists. The gritty and relentless atmosphere of 70's survival flicks is marvelously re-created, but the script doesn't have the courage to genuinely shock the audience with twisted little details or perverted undertones like they did in the old days. The filming locations are stupendous and the producers managed to attract a fantastic cast (including the brilliant Gary Oldman and Virginie Ledoyen). It's really a shame this film doesn't feature anything truly unique, because I really wanted to like and recommend it.

i enjoyed this movie immensely, even though some bits were hard for me to watch. the near-rape was hard, but it wasn't gratuitously shot. it really showed a degree of separation between the man and woman involved (between the man and woman i forgot about the rapist) the characterization was incredible. i HATED one of the men in this movie so much, i am still seething with hate for him days later. at first i also hated his wife, but the relationship between the two became very clear through the course of the movie. Gary Oldman is great in this. it is not a role i have seen him play before, and i didn't like the character much. though, in comparison to the other characters, he was a paragon. i had sympathy for the Spanish men, i understood them, there is not really a bad guy in this film.