Leofwine_draca Hot on the heels of the horror comedy SEVERANCE comes WILDERNESS, a similarly-themed low-budget British movie about a bunch of people on a remote Scottish island who are being picked off one by one by a camouflaged maniac. Bearing many similarities to DOG SOLDIERS in terms of dialogue, gore effects, and the always-welcome presence of Sean Pertwee, despite its predictability and lack of originality, WILDERNESS rocks! An engaging script, plenty of action, and some creepy isolated locales make this flick a winner, and it's also a genuinely exciting film with people fighting for their lives against an unknown oppressor.The movie benefits from the usual clichés that arise when people are stranded somewhere remote; it's all about group dynamics, and watching the characters fall apart or become leaders is always engaging. The acting from the young cast is surprisingly decent, with lots of stand out performances with Toby Kebbell's mad hero taking the honours. And, of course, with this being a modern horror film, it's very gory stuff despite a 15 certificate. Legs and heads are severed, there's a pack of vicious dogs that tear people to shreds (Sean Pertwee never has much luck, does he?) and things culminate with a nasty knife vs. axe fight which makes for really vicious viewing. Lean, pared down, and offering all the splattering you could ever want from an intense horror outing, WILDERNESS does just what it says on the tin – and for that it deserves top marks.

Matt Kracht The plot: After a youth offender is driven to suicide from bullying, his bunkmates are forced to go on a team-building exercise on an isolated island. However, they soon discover that they're not alone.Wilderness is a pretty obvious mash-up of themes borrowed from various sources: the island location, lack of adult supervision, and sadistic bullying of Lord of the Flies; the man vs man conflict of The Most Dangerous Game, as well as its hunter antagonist and island location; the revenge setup of Friday the 13th and countless other slashers; the survival horror of Deliverance; and "Broken Britain" thrillers about despicable, violent youths. There are also hints of other slasher and survival horror films, but, unlike some reviewers, I think Dog Soldiers and Battle Royale are kind of stretching it. So, obviously, the themes are not unique, and they have been dealt with in other media extensively. What makes this film worth watching? For me, it wasn't the plot, but I enjoyed it nonetheless.I'm not a big fan of teenage slashers. I got my fill back in the 1980s, and Scream did nothing to reinvigorate the genre for me. However, I liked the director's previous film, Deathwatch, and I'll never turn down an opportunity to watch Sean Pertwee in a low budget horror film. The cast ended up surprising me, because I thought some of them did a good job. The characterization was at times a bit minimalist, but it was put the good use. Steve, the main antagonist among the teens, was thoroughly despicable and the sort of character that you love to hate. He was played to perfection as a violent coward, and it's difficult to imagine how this film would have been memorable in any way without him. Unlike Deathwatch, the pacing is fairly brisk, and the writing is straightforward. The gore is, at times, comically gratuitous, but it avoids devolving into the torture porn that sometimes accompanies post-Saw survival horror (such as Rest Stop). Still, there are a few good SFX scenes that might stick with you for a day or two.Overall, it's a fairly enjoyable example of teenage survival horror, but it doesn't really pretend to be anything more than that. There are some interesting ideas about revenge vs justice, punishment vs rehabilitation, and the culpability of authority figures in teenage bullying, but none of them are given nearly as much attention as the melodramatic teenage drama. The gore might be too infrequent to satisfy true gorehounds, yet excessive enough to alienate some squeamish viewers. If none of this scares you off, I suggest you give this film a chance. It's not great, but it's enjoyable enough.

FlashCallahan In juvenile detention, inmate Dave commits suicide after being abused with his friend Lindsay by bullies Steve and Lewis.The governor sends them to an uninhabited island to improve their relationships under the command of monitor Jed. They meet another camp with female juveniles under the command of veteran soldier Louise and they camp in another area. They are attacked by a pack of dogs and a mysterious man with a cross-bow, wearing camouflage, they join forces fighting to survive under the leadership of Callum, a new inmate....For a horror film, released straight to DVD, which expresses on the cover how much gore is in the film and features a key character with body parts missing, its a pretty good, well made movie.And that's thanks to the brilliant cast involved in the film. Pertwee and Reid are good, but its Kebbel and Wight who really shine, especially Wight, as you instantly despise his character, proving that he is a great actor.The rest of the support is a little generic, you get your giant with the heart of gold, and the inclusion of another female camp is just there to upset the apple cart, as just a camp of angry boys would be a little bit boring.The film almost plays like a Neil Marshall movie, and when we get the final revelation, it doesn't hit as hard as it would like to.But other than that, its solid stuff, the second act is tense, and like the cover says, its gruesome, but not in your face like other gore movies released in 2006.Cruelly overlooked on initial release, if you find this movie on TV, or streaming, watch it, especially if you like slasher movies of the eighties

Susan Ivanova For much of the movie, I thought it carried along rather well. However I had a huge problem with the ending. The implication was that the soldier who was hunting them was special forces,i.e., SAS. How in the world can we be expected to believe that a street punk could not be easily handled by an SAS soldier in a knife fight? I thought that there was a lot of potential in this movie. The build up was all quite good. But it just utterly collapsed into an absurd pile at the end for me. This super soldier who hangs out there, ingeniously picking them all off one by one. And a two-bit street punk armed with an ax is able to get the best of him? Please! I completely regret wasting my time.