The Backwoods (2006)

Two couples—Paul and Isabel (Gary Oldman and Aitana Sánchez-Gijón) and Norman and Lucy (Paddy Considine and Virginie Ledoyen)—travel to a remote region of Northern Spain for a relaxing break and a spot of hunting (the guys having somehow brought a pair of shotguns with them through customs), but instead they incur the wrath of locals after freeing a young girl they find chained up in a run-down cabin.The obvious inspirations for this rural survival thriller set in the late 70s are Deliverance and Straw Dogs (with Ledoyen in the Susan George role, teasing the drooling locals), although there are striking similarities to countless other examples of the backwoods genre, old and new. One might expect the presence of acting heavyweights Oldman and Considine to compensate somewhat for the derivative nature of the script, but even class performers such as they can do very little with what amounts to a collection of tired clichés presented with little flair or imagination.The Backwoods also suffers from awkward performances from the leading ladies (this may be because neither actress speaks English as their first language), poor pacing, a lack of genuinely disturbing violence (surely a prerequisite of the genre), and a weak denouement that leaves the viewer feeling more than a little cheated.

Shades of STRAW DOGS and dabbles in DELIVERANCE, THE BACKWOODS is an exploration of deep south justice - in Spain.Two Brits with their European wives holiday in the backwoods of Spain, Paul and Isabel (Gary Oldman and Aitana Sánchez-Gijón), and Norman and Lucy (Paddy Considine and Virginie Ledoyen). The two men go hunting one day and come across a malformed little girl chained prisoner in a disused, ratty hovel.It's the freakiest scene in the movie. Obviously this little girl is being kept alive by someone - so though we fear her "crazy flipper fingers" (she sure plays a mean pinball), we must fear even more the people who are keeping her like an animal.Paul and Norman never think of this, and remove her to Paul's rustic cabin, intending to take her to a hospital. Let the moral ambiguity begin...The villagers come a-lookin' for the little girl, suspecting that Paul and Norman know something they're not telling. They're right, of course. But are the villagers right in their treatment of the girl? Should the British couples just walk away, turn a blind eye and leave the villagers to resolve their own sociological problems? After leading Paul into the woods, the villagers go STRAW DOGS on Norman's wife, Lucy, who "asked for it" quite explicitly by walking into the local bar upon her arrival in town, wearing a see-through dress.THE BACKWOODS is an uneven production, alternately slow-moving and riveting; the malformed girl and STRAW DOGS rape scenes are compelling and wondrously violent, while the character studies of the two British couples trying to rejuvenate their flagging marriages are not so.The villagers have a point when they continually warn that the outsiders should not have stuck their nose into Backwoods business. Resolution is not how Hollywood would have liked it...--Review by Poffy The Cucumber (for Poffy's Movie Mania).

This movie reminded me of Deliverance. Most obvious reasons being that the woodsy-setting and crazy locals contributed to that, but there's also a majorly creepy/uncomfortable factor to the whole tone of it.For example, the little girl screamed and cried a few too many times for my taste, as it was starting to get very annoying. But at the same time it made me more tense... so in a way that succeeded in creating a viewing atmosphere where I was on edge the whole time.Some of the camera work/directing/shots looked great, esp. the chase scenes through the woods.I'm not sure if I can say that I exactly enjoyed watching this movie, as I tend to like movies with at least a bit of humor in them, but I did think it was effective as a scary movie.

First, what's wrong with it. Aside from Cohen's wonderful song, the sound and music were poor and didn't add anything. The cinematography was not particularly inventive or inspiring.But still a 10.Why?Okay you have to catch what this excellent writing is up to.The twist at the end is pure and righteous symmetry.It's about justice and revenge, an atypical and furious interpretation of right and wrong. It's got a piece of The Unforgiven about it.It posits that some things just can't be fixed, and that the penalty does often indeed involve even more suffering of the innocent.All the acting is excellent. The direction is excellent.The writing is difficult, twisted, demanding, and wonderful, hard to grasp at first, hard to at first grasp, even at the end. But within it's own pained logic of warfare, just.The heroic transformation is really spectacularly fierce in that the delivery of justice and punishment requires such a high price to be paid by the destroyed innocent, and the hero, that it at first doesn't even seem like justice.... but it sinks in, that it is.Sure, it has deliberate echos of Deliverance, but it's actually much more sinister and indirectly more disturbing, not just to personal safety, but to our perception of right and wrong, and justice, punishment, and revenge.It reminds me in some ways of Death and the Maiden.It could have almost been a stage piece.If it wasn't low budget and foreign, with non-U.S.-well-known writing and directing, and with higher "production values", it would have made big stink here.Or maybe not. Us Americans are often so dull about clear winning and losing, that they get lost in movies like this. Our loss.Oh, and I want to thank Gary Oldman for taking a shot at this. I wouldn't have known about it or seen it with him, and I thank him for roping me in!God only knows what great stuff I miss from not having the time to watch everything! I wish I could clone myself and have them watch it so, I would have reviews I could trust! ;)