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After one
of their cellmates commits suicide, a group of
prisoners are sent to a deserted island as a punishment
for bullying him. It seems to have a good effect on the
unruly youths but what they don't know is that someone
else is on the island. They soon find themselves running
from an unseen serial killer and his vicious dogs. Who
is this mysterious person and is there any way to get
off the island?
Dog Soldiers meets Battle Royale in this new British
horror flick about a group of ruthless teenagers who
find themselves stuck on an island with a serial killer.
Since I'm already on the subject of the victims I might
as well go ahead and tell you all my main problem with
this movie - I hated every single character except
for one, and she's only in the movie for like ten
minutes. Even though the story is great, I just don't
find a movie with no one to root for that interesting.
In the end you're just hoping that everyone dies.
Now that I've gotten that off of my chest I might be
able to focus on the more positive things about this movie.
Director Michael J. Bassett has really improved since
his last feature film, Deathwatch. Every scene seems
to have been carefully thought out and the chase scenes
are to die for. The cinematography is stunning with
strong colours and delicious contrasts, and even though
the characters are all jerks, the acting is top-notch.
Wilderness isn't really a whodunit slasher, and even
though the killers identity isn't revealed until the
very end of the movie, I think most of us had it all
figured out after twenty minutes or so since it doesn't
really focus on keeping the killer's identity a mystery.
I didn't mind this though since I'm pretty sick of
silly twist endings that make no sense at all (the
small twist that we do get is also very predictable).
What makes Wilderness different from many other slasher
movies is that the killer mainly uses his dogs to
kill his victims. While this was a cool idea, I thought
that the dogs were a bit over-utilized, making this
feel a bit like "The Breed". Speaking of movies that
this resembles, I wasn't too fond of the whole "Lord
Of The Flies" turn that it took close to the ending.
It was unnecessary and didn't really fit in.
In the end, Wilderness is a decent movie and while I think
some of you will absolutely love this, I had a hard
time overcoming the fact that all of the characters
were dislikeable. If you're looking for a gore-filled
slasher flick with lots of action and killer dogs in
it, then Wilderness is definitely the right movie for you.
Gore fans will not be disappointed. We get a slashed
throat, a severed arm, a shredded face, a hole in ones
stomach, a foot ripped off, a decapitated head and a
whole lot more.
Standard stuff, some good fast-paced drums in the chase
scenes but nothing really special here.
Love it or hate it but Michael J. Bassett sure knows
what he's doing behind that camera. Despite having
no likeable characters, Wilderness is still a pretty
entertaining movie with lots of gore and some very
cool action scenes. If you liked Dog Soldiers you will
without a doubt like this one - even though it doesn't
have anything to do with werewolves.
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