The Hike (2011)

Good movie but grossly overrated

There are better movies of two hours length. I loved the actress'performance.

The storyline feels a little thin and moth-eaten in parts but this sequel is plenty of fun.

It is neither dumb nor smart enough to be fun, and spends way too much time with its boring human characters.

Five women go on a hiking weekend that turns into a fight for survival. In many ways this film pulls parts from both The Descent and Eden Lake, two other recent British films that concentrate on vacations going wrong. Right from the off you realise this isn't going to be anywhere near the level of those superior films. The five female lead characters are much of a muchness and no-one stands out. The quality of the acting from all five is very moderate at best and at times very poor. The fact that Tamer Hassan a very moderate actor at best, is at the higher end of the acting ability spectrum on show here tells you all you need to know.By far the best and most natural acting on show comes from a cameo at the end from Shauna Macdonald. What a shame they couldn't have incorporated her into the script earlier but maybe budget wouldn't allow this. The script is disappointing and the ridiculous scenario's that occur stretch any small amount of credibility created early on. I know it's a horror film and doesn't need to be realistic but the lazy set up really does let the film down. For much of the film I was going to rate it much lower than a 6 however to be fair the last third of the film did pick up very well and hold the attention. In my view the fate of many films is sealed by the ending and this is where The Hike scored highly in my opinion. I really enjoyed the ending which wasn't a generic cop out and left me satisfied that I hadn't wasted my time watching the previous 90 minutes. This is a low budget film and it shows in many places but it did in parts entertain me. I appreciate that many people will find it junk and in many ways they are right. However if you expect little and are willing to forgive flaws then there is enough here for the avid horror fan to enjoy.

Awful. What more can I say about this terrible terrible movie. Everything was bad about this movie. From the actors to the script. Worst of all there was no definitive motive fro the killings. A stupid senseless movie that should have NEVER been made. A waste of 83 minutes of my life I will never get back, ever. I wonder if this movie had been American would it be any good? Low budget low acting and a bad script. I have seen many B movies and this one is the worst of the bunch. The movie's atmosphere was eerie and claustrophobic which gave the movie a spooky ambiance and the ending had a little twist. I hope there is NOT a sequel to this poodle poop.

I have seen some great survival horror films over the last few years, Resurrection County, Frontiers, Rogue River, I spit on your grave ( 2010 ) and Eden Lake to name a few. This one is the low point of this horror sub-genre. The acting and locations were good, it was just nothing scary about our antagonists. No back story, no character development and no suspense to speak of. Dull and boring that seemed longer then its 82 minute running time. I didn't buy into any of this and the ending is sooooo transparent and you can feel it coming from a mile away. If your lucky stay miles away from this film. Garbage!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I have a friend who, like myself, is an avid horror fan. Any subgenre, any style, any language, any budget. The main difference is that my pal actually BUYS every DVD of these films. He has literally thousands of titles in his collection most of which I have never heard of. Such is the case of THE HIKE.I'm writing this only minutes after I watched the film-indeed I was logging on to IMDb even as the final credits were still rolling. I found it to be an interesting, disturbing and sometimes quite brutal tale, full of twists and turns that simply won't let you go till the final shocking moment.One element of the film which really got my attention was the incredible camera work (and the editing.... lingering on certain shots.... just that *moment* longer... whoa!) yeah. I actually found myself involuntarily invoking Hitchcock in my mind as certain scenes played out during the first third of the film. These scenes are particularly harrowing because we the viewer are being shown almost continuous and subtle clues that Something Isn't Right Out Here, yet the poor girls are clueless - not because they are stupid but because they are utterly unsuspecting that anything is amiss. One such scene is one where the gals are seen at a good distance from the camera, crossing a wide dry gulch. They are distant enough for their chatter to be indistinct. The camera slowly changes depth of focus, bringing the sounds with it, until we are very close to the camera indeed, where we vaguely see the outline of a young woman lying on the forest floor where she gasps and chokes her life away, all the while the lead gals frolic in the background...Yeah, I enjoyed it. All the elements that make a film "good" to me hit it just right - especially the plotting, direction and camera work.I give it a 73/100