Welcome to the Scream Factory Crypt! In this binge series I will be watching all my Scream Factory titles I own alphabetically! Scream Factory is my favorite imprint of Blu-Ray’s because they take movies that studios and the public might not adore but have fans and deserve to be given respect. This will take a long time as I have over 120(!) titles and counting, I know I will have more before I finish, so stay tuned!  Not only will I talk about them on the podcast but I will review them here as well so you can see how I feel about aspects of each release. Part 4 is Backcountry!

Backcountry tells the somewhat true story about a couple of young Canadians who go back packing in the Canadian wilderness and are hunted by a man eating bear, or that’s what the cover of the film would have you believe. Jenn and Alex are the couple we follow and are likable. Alex is confident that he can lead Jenn on an adventure she will never forget. For the first hour of Backcountry it plays more as a drama then a horror film. Jenn and Alex have troubles that are exacerbated not only by Alex’s overconfidence but also by Brad a hunky tour guide who shows up out of the blue on the first night the couple go camping. Slowly we learn of Alex’s intentions for bringing Jenn out to the wilderness but that’s only after the couple get lost and have a falling out. The bear does show up and wreaks havoc and turns a drama into a full fledge survival horror film.

Backcountry is better than I thought it would be. The leads are strong and do a great job carrying the film when it’s just the two of them. Eric Balfour plays Brad, but for some reason he’s Irish in the middle of the Canadian wilderness. Balfour is the right amount of threat, but being Irish is a weird choice and Balfour’s accent is not bad, not great. It could be that I am so familiar with Balfour that makes it a tough sale on his accent. The bear attack is well shot and scary. Overall for a movie that started out as a joke on the podcast as “Ghost Bear”, turned out to be a pretty solid flick.

The video for the release of Backcountry is pretty good. Nothing looks unnatural, credit must be given to the filmmakers on making a great looking film on only 16 days of shooting.

Audio is an important part of a survival movie, Backcountry sounds great. The Canadian ambience and the bear roars are on point. Dialogue is clear and easy to understand.

As far as the extras go, Backcountry is surprisingly loaded. A nearly 20 minute making of, a silly short feature called “Bear Shots” (it’s pretty funny). My favorite is the commentary by the Director Adam Macdonald, actors Jeff Roop and Missy Peregrym, I love when small budget films have commentary, passion is always heard by the participants.

Overall, Backcountry is a solid little film. I would definitely recommend this movie for fans of animal attack movies and survival films as well.

Film: B

Video: B+

Audio: A-

Extras: B

Overall: B