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Four friends
are on their way into the deep backwoods
of Norway to do some hiking. In the middle of nowhere
they stop for something to eat and stumble onto a
girl who begs them to give her a ride. After a lot of
bickering they decide to let her come, but they soon
find out what the girl is running from. Before long,
the friends find themselves running through the woods,
trying to get away from three demented rednecks.
Norway has been on top of their game lately producing
outstanding horror flicks such as "Dark Woods" and
"Cold Prey". When I found out about "Rovdyr" (which
is called Backwoods internationally but literarily
translates into Predator) I was ecstatic as the trailer
looked magnificent, and it also looked extremely gory
something which is VERY rare in Scandinavian horror
flicks. I don't think there has ever been one gory
Scandinavian theatrical production except for perhaps
some cheap ones from Denmark such as Shredded (not to
be mixed up with Shredder). Now, Rovdyr has hit
Norwegian cinemas and as I entered the theatre, I knew
that something was wrong...
When Cold Prey was released, the theatre was packed,
but with Rovdyr, me and my friend found ourselves in
a theatre with less than 30 people in it - and it was
opening night! The movie started without any trailers
and revealed its sloppy 30-second opening sequence
and I swear to god I wanted to leave the theatre right
there and then, but as patriotic as I am, I had hopes
that things would get better... well they didn't.
The movie takes place in 1974 and they've actually
nailed that part, the movie REALLY looks like it was
made back in the 70s. I swear, had I not know that
this was a new movie I would have thought that it was
made right after The Last House On The Left was released
since the opening credits are presented with the famous
classic "The Road Leads To Nowhere" pumping out loudly
through the speakers.
Anyway, we're quickly introduced to the four main
characters. We have a dumb blonde and her abusive
boyfriend and we have a brunette and her silly brother.
Perhaps not the best of characters. It didn't take
long before the entire audience had realized that this
was going to be a complete rip-off of The Texas Chainsaw
Massacre remake and Wrong Turn as the friends pick up
some random, paranoid girl at a small diner. Five
minutes later, three hunters show up from out of
nowhere and kill the paranoid girl along with the only
likeable character in the entire movie - GREAT move.
Now we're stuck with whiny, wimpy and wussy as they
run through the woods while the three hunters keep
busy with blowing in horns and whistling to their
victims. Yes, they whistle. Why? Who knows.
The flat characters should have been the movies biggest
problem but it's not. I don't know if it was due to
the fact that the cast couldn't act for shit or if
it was due to the fact that the script seemed to have
been written in a few days but there is minimal
dialogue in here. I mean MINIMAL! For most of the
time it's just dead silence, and not scary silence,
just boring silence. I wasn't the only one in the
audience yawning, trust me. There is also minimal
plot in here. We're not even on a need-to-know basis.
We have no idea who the hunters are, where they come
from, what relation they have to each other or why they
kill people. The movie also has some serious pacing
problems as a result of the water-thin plot.
When it comes to the technical aspects of the movie,
the movie is a mixed bag. It looks polished enough
and the lighting is for most of the time decent but
some scenes looked as if they were shot with a DV
camera. Yes, there were actually times when I questioned
whether or not this movie was really intended to be
a theatrical flick, even though I knew that it was.
Now we get to the question you've all been dying to
ask. Is it really as kick-ass gory as the trailer
makes it out to be? Well, the distributor were hoping
for a PG-15 rating (the most common rating for horror
flicks in Norway) but got stuck with the dreaded
NC-17 rating (this doesn't say much though as both
Saw and Texas Chainsaw were rated NC-17 in Norway).
If you ask me, they might as well have cut the gore
out because it didn't help the movie in any way.
Sure, there are a few rare moments were the gore shines
(especially in the beginning) but after that the gore
effects get campier and campier. We even get to see
a hunter pull out some very clean-looking white guts
from a dead body that's covered in blood, NOT okay!
The movie does have its qualities though and it did
make me jump every once in a while but sadly, this is
not a movie I can recommend. I was so disappointed.
I doubt that this will get distribution outside of
Norway and I'm betting my money on that this will flop.
I love survival horror but this movie didn't have a
single original bone in it, it had three movies as
inspiration and it stole as much as it could from them.
Support Norwegian horror by checking out Cold Prey
another time instead.
A gory foot (the best scene in the movie), some white
guts, a crappy impalement, some barbed-wire action
(that could have been so much better) and some stabbings.
Sure, it's the goriest horror flick to come out of
Scandinavia in quite a while but the gore effects
weren't very realistic and didn't impress me.
70s music. Didn't work. I'm sorry but it didn't. It
should have, but there was no atmosphere.
Flat survival horror from Norway that is so unoriginal
that it hurts the eyes. This was a big disappointment
to me as I had my expectations quite high. Well, it
didn't live up to them and when the movie ended you
couldn't help but to feel cheated and I seriously
considered asking for my money back. This is no
Cold Prey, this is not even a Wrong Turn 2.
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