Writer: Adam MacDonald (Screenplay)
Starring: Missy Peregrym, Eric Balfour, Nicholas Campbell, Jeff Roop
Plot: An urban couple go camping in the woods and find themselves lost in the territory of a predatory black bear.
There may be spoilers the rest of the review
Verdict: Camping with a Bear
Story: Blackfoot Trail starts as our young couple Jenn (Peregrym) and Alex (Roop) go down to the woods listening to terrible traveling music which I side with poor Jenn who had no escape from the music. Arriving in the remote woods the two-urban people pack their phones away and head of for their camping weekend. OOOOO there is a BASED OF A TRUE STORY warning, because people go camping I guess that is true.
We go through the usual this is a fun trip including the almost pointless skinny dipping scene, looking for wood for the fire scene, noises in the woods surprise us scene and creepy stranger turning up with Brad (Balfour) taking this role with his strange attempt of an Irish accent. 35 minutes into the film we are still dealing with the camping experience, this is what I want to see the most and now we have the we got lost in the woods situation. 45 minutes into this movie and I am pretty sure I read there was going to be a black bear, I am not sure where it is but I think he was late for production and they decided to film lots of pointless camping scenes and it is dark again.
I see the bear is here outside the tent 46 minutes into a 90-minute movie, and he is hungry. Well the couple didn’t see the bear eat their food and we get the ‘IT COULD BE WORSE’ cliché followed by make-up sex that gets disturbed so we will try again in the morning, no, but the ‘WE ARE GOING TO BE OK’ cliché hits hard now. THE BEAR 55 minutes into the film the bear has arrived to turn this bad weekend into a nightmare. Alex gets eaten quite quickly leaving Jenn having to find her own way to safety with a blood thirsty Black bear after her, line up the running, hiding and desperate searching for help and for a non-found footage film there is a hell of a lot of shaky cam going on.
Blackfoot Trail is a survival horror that I found myself enjoying commentating on because very little happens for the first hour of the film except plenty of camping issues and no not the gamer term camping just two people in the woods camping. I found this keeping me from getting bored with how the story unfolded because the couple are not the most likeable pairing and the way I look at these sort of films is, the moment something messed up happens you get the hell out you do not shrug your shoulders and go it was probably nothing.
The bear attack is bloody but is mostly off camera in the end where we either see the bears roar or the bloody aftermath of the attack. The lead couple don’t really have the chemistry to make them see like they are about to get to the engaged stage of their relationship and the random almost cameo from Eric Balfour is laughable waste of his talent. This is a really slow movie that should reach much higher levels of intensity to make the impact required from the subject matter.
Overall: This is a very boring film about something that could have been a very intense situation that lacks any punch about it.
Rating