Wilderness Dvd Review

I had heard some positive things about this British movie and I believe it even won an award at some film festival last year. It is directed by Michael J Bassett whom also directed the S.T.D. horror movie a few years back called Deathwatch. It stars a bunch of unknown British kids led by the character "Steve" (actor Stephen Wright). "Steve" has to be one of the biggest dickheads to grace the screen in a long time. Every time he was on the screen i just wanted to punch him right in the face. In other words he did a great job for his character.

The movie is about a bunch of delinquent kids who have raped, murdered and other horrendous acts and now are in some type of juvie prison. After they tease one kid till he eventually kills himself they are commanded to go to an uninhabited island called "The Wilderness" for some hard outdoor living. That is if your definition of hard is walking around, camping out and relaxing. Anyway they coincidentally meet up with some other delinquent girls that are on the island for the same reason. This is where all the fun starts. The kids and adults start getting picked off one by one. A few of them get mutilated by dogs and the others are hunted and killed by knife, fire and arrows.

You find out about mid way through the movie who the killer is so its not a big part of the story. The movie has some pretty good gore minus some bad unnecessary cgi bits. That are some throats ripped out by dogs, a boy whose foot and face are mutilated by some steel traps. The movie is going for a more realistic type of tone instead of over the top action.

Don't misunderstand me but I think the director has real potential to be a great British genre filmmaker along the lines of Neil Marshall (the Descent) and Danny Boyle (28 Days Later). All he needs is a better script, bigger production, and lay off the poor cgi effects. Maybe the third time will be the charm. Still I give it a positive rating just for entertainment value. The movie even though lacking in certain areas has a great feel and atmosphere to it. For anyone interested in this type of movie i recommend it and give this movie a solid 7.0