We all know the type. Shallow, insecure, career oriented losers who somehow hook up after college. He's a female man with some sort of Humanities degree who studies poetry or maybe ancient religions when not writing about himself, she works out in the gym, wears the pants around the house, runs a self-help website, and aspires to teach Yoga someday. They are so pathetic they fail to see how unsuitable they are and need relationship counseling to point it out, but decide to take matters into their own hands & head off to the mountains to bond in their SUV.
There's about twenty good minutes in the film, the rest of it will drive you to freebase Zoloft, as Tom and Meg slowly come to grips with the fact that they can't stand each other, weren't meant for each other, and drive one another crazy with their respective BS. Meanwhile, back at home, everyone in their life leaves messages that make their plight in life all too clear: Every person from their family, work, and social circles are annoying narcissistic jerks who take them for granted. All of these people deserve to be locked up together with Tom and Meg in a shipping container & pushed off a cliff. If they weren't so utterly annoying this movie could have been something, and sadly I fear the characters represent the film's target audience: Insufferable Yuppie idiots who have never seen OPEN SEASON with Peter Fonda uncut.
Sadly we only get to see this pair of them buy the farm and if you ask me the film bumps the wrong one off first. At least if Tom had cracked his apple on a patch of moss Meg could have still doffed her shirt while keeping the PG-13 rating. As it is after he buries Meg under a pile of sticks (no tomb of rocks?) we're stuck with Tom as he slowly cracks up, runs around waving his arms, and falls down a lot. Not sure if it occurred to Tom that he is tampering with evidence by hiding her body and setting himself up for a possible murder rap. Then again this is a guy who's idea of hiking fashion involves a fleece vest with loafers. Dingbat didn't even bring a hat, cell phone or GPS. Darwinism eventually catches up with him, thank God. Another sucker off the vine.
Then there's the pesudo-supernatural hippie derelict psychopath playing games with the two of them who may or may not be there. He may be a ghostly presence, he may be a figment of Tom's spiraling insanity, and he may just be really good at hiding behind trees. The movie doesn't care enough about him to bother explaining what his role is, other than to live in the woods, look unclean & be menacing. I used to work with guys who did that just tying their shoes. Who is he? What is he doing out in the woods? Even Jason had a back story. He isn't a character, he's a device to move the plot along and at the end one isn't sure if he was really there, even after apparently killing a major character.
The director -- perhaps our UCLA Film Professor friend who glowingly gave the film eight stars out of ten? -- apparently saw Peter Carter's RITUALS and possibly even John Boorman's DELIVERANCE & was understandably inspired. They are great films, start with them first if you haven't already. He understood the superficial aspect of the dynamic that being lost in nature can have upon interpersonal relationships, and how creepy it is to be stalked by a demented psychopath. What he didn't get as much of a feel for was the spirit of menace and dread that both films evoke. Not just by having bestial deformed redneck hermits pluckin' the banjo, but the total hostility of nature to humans without adequate shelter, supplies, and clothing, utterly lost and so beyond hope that they turn on each other. These two turn on each other as a plot device and even then it wasn't very convincing. I've witnessed couples fight more viciously over the remote while sitting on a sofa.
But there is about twenty minutes of decent material snuck in amidst the sniping, moaning, prissy discussions, veiled put-downs, female empowerment speeches, gender politics, unfunny jokes, and disgusting Yuppie sportswear. Someone beat me over the head if I ever leave my house wearing a fleece vest, please. There is some interesting natural location work to the filming which lends the film with a ruggedness at spots that's about as stirring as leafing through a EMS catalog. One interesting aspect the story touches on (all too briefly) is how this couple is fleeing technological civilization to try and "save" their pointless marriage in nature. But Tom is a writer and writers write all the time, so he brings his laptop with him in case some inspiration strikes. Meg has a problem with this, even though -- as Tom points out -- the royalty checks from his manuscript writing gig pay her gym bills. Which begs the questions of just how these two ended up with each other ... what a bitch.
3/10, and yes, it's a horror movie alright. The horror of insufferable Yuppie trash. You know the type.
There's about twenty good minutes in the film, the rest of it will drive you to freebase Zoloft, as Tom and Meg slowly come to grips with the fact that they can't stand each other, weren't meant for each other, and drive one another crazy with their respective BS. Meanwhile, back at home, everyone in their life leaves messages that make their plight in life all too clear: Every person from their family, work, and social circles are annoying narcissistic jerks who take them for granted. All of these people deserve to be locked up together with Tom and Meg in a shipping container & pushed off a cliff. If they weren't so utterly annoying this movie could have been something, and sadly I fear the characters represent the film's target audience: Insufferable Yuppie idiots who have never seen OPEN SEASON with Peter Fonda uncut.
Sadly we only get to see this pair of them buy the farm and if you ask me the film bumps the wrong one off first. At least if Tom had cracked his apple on a patch of moss Meg could have still doffed her shirt while keeping the PG-13 rating. As it is after he buries Meg under a pile of sticks (no tomb of rocks?) we're stuck with Tom as he slowly cracks up, runs around waving his arms, and falls down a lot. Not sure if it occurred to Tom that he is tampering with evidence by hiding her body and setting himself up for a possible murder rap. Then again this is a guy who's idea of hiking fashion involves a fleece vest with loafers. Dingbat didn't even bring a hat, cell phone or GPS. Darwinism eventually catches up with him, thank God. Another sucker off the vine.
Then there's the pesudo-supernatural hippie derelict psychopath playing games with the two of them who may or may not be there. He may be a ghostly presence, he may be a figment of Tom's spiraling insanity, and he may just be really good at hiding behind trees. The movie doesn't care enough about him to bother explaining what his role is, other than to live in the woods, look unclean & be menacing. I used to work with guys who did that just tying their shoes. Who is he? What is he doing out in the woods? Even Jason had a back story. He isn't a character, he's a device to move the plot along and at the end one isn't sure if he was really there, even after apparently killing a major character.
The director -- perhaps our UCLA Film Professor friend who glowingly gave the film eight stars out of ten? -- apparently saw Peter Carter's RITUALS and possibly even John Boorman's DELIVERANCE & was understandably inspired. They are great films, start with them first if you haven't already. He understood the superficial aspect of the dynamic that being lost in nature can have upon interpersonal relationships, and how creepy it is to be stalked by a demented psychopath. What he didn't get as much of a feel for was the spirit of menace and dread that both films evoke. Not just by having bestial deformed redneck hermits pluckin' the banjo, but the total hostility of nature to humans without adequate shelter, supplies, and clothing, utterly lost and so beyond hope that they turn on each other. These two turn on each other as a plot device and even then it wasn't very convincing. I've witnessed couples fight more viciously over the remote while sitting on a sofa.
But there is about twenty minutes of decent material snuck in amidst the sniping, moaning, prissy discussions, veiled put-downs, female empowerment speeches, gender politics, unfunny jokes, and disgusting Yuppie sportswear. Someone beat me over the head if I ever leave my house wearing a fleece vest, please. There is some interesting natural location work to the filming which lends the film with a ruggedness at spots that's about as stirring as leafing through a EMS catalog. One interesting aspect the story touches on (all too briefly) is how this couple is fleeing technological civilization to try and "save" their pointless marriage in nature. But Tom is a writer and writers write all the time, so he brings his laptop with him in case some inspiration strikes. Meg has a problem with this, even though -- as Tom points out -- the royalty checks from his manuscript writing gig pay her gym bills. Which begs the questions of just how these two ended up with each other ... what a bitch.
3/10, and yes, it's a horror movie alright. The horror of insufferable Yuppie trash. You know the type.
