Backcountry is a 2014 thriller about a couple who go camping in the woods and find themselves lost in the territory of a predatory black bear.
The monster in the dark story has always been best done with the creature held at bay for as long as possible, the worry of its arrival always more terrifying than its actual presence. This concentrated patience in delivering the beast until the last possible moment has made for a few truly harrowing, if not groundbreaking films.
This slow journey into terror is where writer and director Adam MacDonald gets the most out of his debut feature film Backcountry, a slightly flawed psychological bit of mayhem that rests comfortably in a few stable clichés at its start but brought to bear – if you’ll forgive the wording – by a raw run from it lead female star.
Young couple Alex (Jeff Roop) and his girlfriend Jenn (Missy Peregrym) drive into a Canadian provincial park on their first camping trip together, she never having gone into the woods before and he promising her the site he has in mind is breathtaking, a favorite from his childhood. Backpacks and gear on the ready, they hit the trail, Alex claiming he doesn’t need a map (first clue) and then hiding her phone in the car (second clue). All seems good but of course, that’s far from the case when Alex in fact doesn’t really know where to go and leads them into place far off the path, the two soon very, very lost and absolutely not alone.
It’s the halfway mark before we see the bear, or at least its rather burly snout pressed against the thin vinyl of the couple’s tent as they sleep, despite several hints here and there that its somewhere about. Alex keeps most of these obvious signs of danger out of Jenn’s line of sight, he slowly realizing that being lost is now only half the problem. He can only do that for so long though and when the bear finally does make it on screen, well … I’ll leave that for you to discover.
Let’s talk about Peregrym, who is cast in a rough role, both mentally and physically, putting herself through the ringer in evolving Jenn from the passive inexperienced girlfriend to a straight-up woodland warrior. The film is, for the most part, a cast of two, even as a key player (Eric Balfour) makes some comings and goings, though by the third act, she’s mostly alone, steadily sinking into an abyss, stalked by one of Mother Nature’s more aggressive furry and fanged feral forest foragers.
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Peregrym finds a lot of room in Jenn to explore the more cerebral aspects of survival, remembering what she’s learned in her short time in the woods while using this to her advantage as the hungry bear hunts its next meal. Things get decidedly gruesome but always with great authenticity, which makes it all the more horrifying yet Peregrym never lets this slip into histrionics, her performance always grounded, often without a a word for long stretches of the last half. There’s an extended moment when she stares right into the camera, Jenn exhausted, beaten, broken, and chased, seemingly asking us what we would do, maybe even seeking a kind of permission for what may become her surrender. It’s a shattering image.
Based on real events, though much of it has been altered, Backcountry is a rare gem for what it does, in the end sidestepping most of the conventional horror tropes in the genre in favor of something far more credible, refusing to follow the plan and make this what you expect it to be. The bear is simply a bear and while it’s time on screen is limited, it’s ferocious, unnervingly so, but it is still just a bear. MacDonald wisely leaves that alone, letting it do what a bear does (squeamish folk might want to brush up on that fact before watching) and instead concentrates on the people, especially Jenn, her journey not burdened by metaphor or symbolism, but just plain consequences. It’s a good movie with a must see performance from Peregrym.