Official Synopsis:
Summer 1978: Two couples decide to spend the summer in a remote vacation house in the north of Spain. Hidden away in the middle of a forest, and very much off the beaten track, the house seems ideal for some peaceful holidays. While out hunting, the two men come across an abandoned house and discover a deformed, animalistic girl chained inside. They bring her back to the house, intending to take her to the authorities. Tension with the rural locals heightens when they come armed with shotguns, looking for the girl...
  
Our Take:
If you don’t like Gary Oldman, you probably don’t like watching movies. It’s as simple as that, and he’s just that good. With that said, you can imagine my surprise when a Gary Oldman movie that I had never heard of popped up in my review pile. That movie happened to be The Backwoods and, not only does it have Oldman as its lead, but it also stars Paddy Considine, who has turned in brilliant performances in the likes of In America, Cinderella Man, Dead Man’s Shoes, and Hot Fuzz.

I don’t usually talk about things like opening credit sequences in my reviews but the title sequence here is great. It harkened back to some old school horror elements and really set the mood for everything to follow. Although not as gruesome as the title sequence for Se7en, the tone is very reminiscent.  The Backwoods is a horror movie but not in any sort of conventional way. There are no sadistic killers; there are no real killers at all as the bad guys are more or less just misinformed and uneducated more than anything else. But that doesn’t make their presence any less threatening.

Oldman is marked as our star and while he basically is, I felt that Considine was more of the main character. He’s less of a jerk, we spend more time with his character and what drives him, and then there’s the whole screen time thing, which Considine has just a bit more of. And surprise, surprise, but both actors, Oldman and Considine, do wonderful work. And since this film has limited settings and is more or less a character piece, it’s them that we rely on to carry the movie for us.

There are no special features included on this disc.

I feel I should probably warn some of you that The Backwoods is a Spanish film. It’s not entirely in Spanish, as our two leads are both British, but we do get a good amount of it – including Gary Oldman lending his tongue to another language.

If you like mood pieces and are willing to get invested in these characters, you will have no problems enjoying The Backwoods. It has a great tone and mood throughout, despite lacking what most horror-goers are probably looking for in a film.

RECOMMENDED!

Overall Picture:
Movie: B+
DVD: C

- Landen Chase Pelish
Staff Writer