SYNOPSIS: In “Out Come the Wolves,” a new survival drama now playing in select theatres and day-and-date on VOD/Digital, Sophie (Missy Peregrym) chooses a hunting trip at a remote cabin in the woods, to introduce her childhood best friend Kyle (Joris Jarsky) to fiancé Nolan (Damon Runyan). The idea is to for Kyle to teach Nolan how to hunt for an article he’s writing, but jealous tension hangs in the air. When the two men are ambushed by a ferocious wolf pack, Sophie must rely on her hunting prowess to come to the rescue.
CAST: Missy Peregrym, Joris Jarsky, Damon Runyan. Directed by Adam MacDonald.
REVIEW: Who’s afraid of the big bad wolf? Well, in “Out Comes the Wolves,” Sophie, Kyle and Nolan are, but the biggest threat isn’t the wolves. This a survival film, but the animals, despite their lupine snarls, fierce presence and taste for humans, are symbolic predators.
The real threat here is human nature. The specter of jealousy hangs over this trio’s interactions like a shroud—“He’s not the one for you,” Kyle says about Nolan—infecting their behavior, leading to tragedy.
That’s the metaphorical big, bad wolf.
The actual wolves provide the bite, quite literally, but “Out Come the Wolves” works best when it concentrates on the interpersonal dynamics. When Kyle reminds Sophie they once made a deal to marry if they weren’t otherwise engaged by age forty, she snorts, “Weren’t we, like twelve?” not realizing that, for him, it was more than just a childhood joke. It opens a discussion about “real” predators, who, as Kyle states, “are fascinating. They see an opportunity and they take it.”
When the movie moves away from the true nature of, well, nature, human and otherwise—“In nature,” Kyle says, “what you see is what you get.”—it becomes more visceral, but less interesting.
As nature-bound modes of death go there are few grimmer ways to go than being eaten by a bear. As Werner Herzog says after listening to audio of Timothy Treadwell being mauled by a grizzly in the a-bear-made-me-his-lunch documentary “Grizzly Man,” “it’s the most terrifying thing I’ve ever heard in my life.” Sure, being licked to death by puppies would be horrifying, as would a deadly nip from a shark, but for sheer primal terror a deadly bear bite rates in the top two.
In “Backcountry” Alex (Jeff Roop) convinces his girlfriend Jenn (Missy Peregrym) to join him on a woodsy adventure in a provincial park on the remote Blackfoot Trail. He knows his way around the forest and while she is more comfortable practising law in the city she agrees to go along for the ride. The romantic camping trip is disrupted almost before it has a chance to begin by Brad (Eric Balfour), a mysterious and possibly dangerous stranger. Eager to put some space between them and Brad, Alex pushes on, getting deeper into the trail. Soon they get lost and with supplies running low the pressure of wandering aimlessly gets to them. Worse, the trip soon becomes an exercise in survival when an uninvited bear crashes their tent looking for more than porridge.
Call it “Goldilocks and the Hungry Bear” if you like, but “Backcountry” plays on a basic fear, the idea of being consumed and it does it well. Director Adam MacDonald has an obvious love for genre movies, and has clearly studied movies like “Grizzly Rage” and learned his lessons well. He gives us a long build-up, creating tension—Is that Brad in the woods or an animal?—before introducing the fangs and claws. When he does, it’s worth the wait. His grizzly is a vicious, snarling beast, a Forest OG and a force to be dealt with.
Questions linger about why Alex, presented as an experienced camper would set out on a trip like this without the proper supplies and tool—My kingdom for a GPS!—and while “Backcountry’s” nicely constructed tale doesn’t answer them, it renders them moot when the bear brings a dose of life and death to the tale.
