Yawn. Poorly Filmed Snooze Fest.

Absolutely Fantastic

It's complicated... I really like the directing, acting and writing but, there are issues with the way it's shot that I just can't deny. As much as I love the storytelling and the fantastic performance but, there are also certain scenes that didn't need to exist.

There is, somehow, an interesting story here, as well as some good acting. There are also some good scenes

The venue for inbred right wing religious families has moved from Texas and West Virginia to California. A group of executives go into the woods to play paintball only to be captured by aforesaid group, with women being used for breeding. I had the feeling of deja vu the whole time I was watching. I enjoyed the fast moving intense opening credits. The film was decent up until the meat of the picture, the confrontation, and at that point it was a yawner.I would consider this to be a generic film with standard eye candy, plot, and acting and on the minus side of the blood and gore. Dead animals don't count.Parental Guide: 2 f-bombs. No sex or nudity. Women are apparently tied up to be raped, but it is off camera.

Feels like a tamed down version of "Wrong Turn 2". Almost exact plot, characters, villains, violent moments. But as a TV movie it lacks of gore, nudity, and violence.Still, it pays correct homage to movies like "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre" (remake), "Wrong Turn" (specially this one), and even "The Hills Have Eyes" (original and remake).This movie is a teaser. It has spectacular sexy women in skimpy outfits and even talk about sex and more, but do not appear naked or anything! It also makes us think there's gonna be plenty of gore and violence but it's almost offscreen! Offers great settings, decent music, and best of all, very good cinematography.It has the elements but not the guts. Still I recommend it for those who enjoy the always reliable lost-in the backwoods-tormented-by-crazed-mutants. Or whatever they are.Catch it on cable. Otherwise, skip it.

The film opens as a couple in a national park are attacked and taken hostage. Later the woman is raped and made pregnant while the man is killed.Mark Till is a young and handsome CEO, a self-made sporting-goods tycoon who sees human survival as a skill to be honed and cherished in the boardroom and beyond. That's why each year he sponsors a week-long survival getaway to test the mettle of twelve lucky employees, to challenge them, body and mind. This year it's a paintball war in the remote woods/ national park in northern California. Motivated, mid-level executive Abby Winters is looking forward to leaving the civil confines of Los Angeles for something so primal, invigorating, and exciting. Total outsiders to the wary locals, these urban Rambos think they're ready for anything.On the first day the Alpha and Bravo camps are set up. In the night, one of Abby's team, Adam Benson hears a noise in the dark and goes to investigate, but sees nothing. The next day the Paintball War begins. A few minutes later a member of Abby's team pops a figure ambling through the woods. Score one for Alpha. Until they realize that the person they hit isn't part of either team. While attempting to make it back to camp the Beta team comes across an abandoned house. Inside they are attacked and kidnapped by people with primitive weapons like axes and bows. The people who kidnapped them are part of an over zealous religious group, who have mistaken the team for FBI Agents who have supposedly come to claim their land. The Alpha group return to their camp and find it ransacked and their gas siphoned off. As they try to find some gas they are attacked. The group's leader is killed while Adam and the others barely manage to escape. Adam then attempts to contact the Park Ranger, but his call is intercepted by one of the cult and he and the other's are captured by a man posing as a Park Ranger. Then Maggie (one of the girl's in the Beta group) is shown. The leader of the cult (called 'Mother') tells her that the cult's camp is her home now. Then she is taken and raped by 'Mother's biological son. The woman who was captured at the beginning is now shown to be pregnant. Lee (from Group Alpha) is also taken and prepared to be raped while the boys are put in to cages and brutalized by the males in the cult. The fake ranger who appears to be Mother's husband and the Cult's protector, takes Adam and tortures him, attempting to get information about the FBI's plans. When Adam resist's he sends one of the other cult members to finish him off. As his throat is about to be slit, Adam who has broken free of his ropes, attacks and kills his would-be murderer. He then sets the surviving guys (only three have survived the brutalizing) free. They then escape (killing several cult members along the way) and rescue the girls. Maggie (the Beta group's girl) is hysteric about being raped. The group escapes with Lee, who had managed to run away just before being raped. They are then pursued by the cultists. After setting fire to the compound, they are cornered outside it. As they are about to be executed, they turn the tables, taking Mother hostage. One of the group is killed and the others escape, severely injuring and killing several cultists. Later the other boy in the group, besides Adam is killed, when he falls prey to a trip wire rigged trap. The group makes it up to a mountain where Maggie, who is now delusional from the drugs given to her and the trauma, commits suicide by jumping off the cliff. Lee and Adam escape by jumping into a river and swimming to the shore, where they meet the real Park Ranger. Then Mother's husband, her son and another Cultist arrive in a truck and shoot Ranger Rick with an arrow. Adam then takes his gun and shoots both the cultists. Mother's husband attempts to run Adam down but collides with the Ranger's truck. Adam shoots him as he begs for help. Later the FBI and the Police arrive, giving medical attention to Adam and Lee. Adam is disturbed to hear that only two bodies were recovered from the final confrontation.Later a FBI team is trekking through the forest, searching for the cult when the girl from the beginning of the movie comes out of a cave, having finally escaped from the cult. As the agent leading the group walks towards her she shouts for her to run. Then they are confronted by Mother's son, who has survived the gunshot wound and the movie ends

Backwoods starts as seven computer game designers from Los Angeles & their boss head out to the isolation of Jasper Park in North California for a team building yet competitive exercise of paint-balling, Adam (Ryan Merriman) expresses his concerns about the dead mutilated animals that they find, that he doesn't think things feel right & the fact that he saw someone looking at them the previous night but no-one takes any notice of his rantings. That is until four of the work mates stumble across a cult of people who murder the men that trespass & take the women to breed future members, with the teams numbers dwindling quickly the survivors must find a way to escape the woods back to civilization & get help but the cult members are everywhere & do all they can to kill them in order to keep themselves hidden from society...Directed by Marty Weiss you could be forgiven for thinking that Backwoods is some cheap backwoods teen slasher (hell, it's even called Backwoods) but after watching this I'd say it's more of an action thriller as much as a slasher & I also have to add that I didn't have high hopes for it but Backwoods didn't turn out to be too bad. It starts out like a Wrong Turn (2003) rip-off with a little Deliverance (1972) thrown in there as a teenager is killed & his girlfriend kidnapped by ugly rednecks & then a group of workmates on a team bonding exercise turn up & are seemingly next up for the chop but the majority of the film is spent with a cat & mouse game between the computer game designers & the evil cult members as our heroes turn the tables on the rednecks, most of the character's are adults rather than teens & the whole cult angle is different to what I was expecting. Having said that Backwoods isn't any sort of masterpiece, it never goes as far as it probably should, there's some nonsense about the cult kidnapping women for breeding purposes & when you boil it down I suppose Backwoods is nothing more than people running around a wood chasing each other. At just over 80 odd minutes the film moves along at a decent pace & it passes an hour & a half harmlessly & it even entertains on a basic simple unfussy sort of level but just don't expect lots of blood or gore.Backwoods gets off to a terrible start with some horrible opening credits which are fast cut snippets of footage that is blurred & processed set to some awful rock music but luckily things improve. As mentioned the gore levels are a bit disappointing, while there's a fair amount of violence it's action film violence with fights & shootings rather than horror film violence, a few arrows are shot into people & a guy is impaled on a wooden spiked trap but there aren't many memorable death scenes here. At least it's well made with good steady cinematography & thankfully the fast editing is confined to the opening credits.Filmed in some woods in Los Angeles this has good production values & actually looks quite good without any of the annoying modern over processed editing tricks that are used far too often in modern cinema. The acting is reasonable, Haylie the sister of singer Hilary Duff appears here & is alright.Backwoods isn't a bad way to pass an hour & a half I suppose, it's nothing amazing but nowhere near as bad as I had feared. Overall you could do a lot worse, worth a watch if you can catch it on telly for free.