Desolation (2017) 1h 18m

I don't have a child, but if this film has taught me anything it's that before I ever let said imaginary future child to go camping with me or someone else then I'm going to make them watch both Predator and First Blood just so they're prepared for anything!  You need to hide from something trying to kill you?  Cover yourself in mud and let all the rad traps you set take that mother fucker out!  I don't care if you're five!  Protect your neck, non-binary imaginary child!

Desolation is a journey of letting go.  A mother and son go hiking in the mountains in order to spread the ashes of their recently deceased husband/father.  Armed with bear mace and a family friend, they begin to be stalked by woodland Rob Zombie for an undefined reason.  After the friend is stolen in the night the mom and son combo realize they have to escape before they're forced to listen to Living Dead Girl until they die.

I don't know what to classify this movie as.  It feels like it would be a terrible home invasion film if this took place in a house, so Forest Invasion?  Woodland Survival Horror?  Scout Horror?  Woods of 1000 Corpses?  Okay, that was the last one.  While there is this whole plot of the stranger hunting them the real plot of this film is that the son just wants to be recognized as being a teenager, and thus no longer a child.  You feel for the mother, having lost her husband and thus wanting to protect her son but you can't be emotionally dismissive or else he's going to learn to resent you!  Go to therapy!  With that in mind, the boy does prove to his mother that he is now more man than child and eventually bludgeons Rob Zombies head to pieces with a rock.  I get it, you're working through some shit as well kid, but damn... you need to go to therapy too.

I give Desolation 2 copies of Hellbilly Deluxe out of 5:

6-5=2 (2014)

Three days deep and we get our first "found footage" film of this Cut.  I wanted to rip into this movie right at the start of this review but I decided to take a moment and look into it a bit more.  This is really a bare bones production done on a shoe-string budget.  It's the director/producer's first film and there wasn't much of a crew.  I'm filling you in on this info because it's something that I'm taking into consideration.  I came into myself thanks in part to a very DIY punk scene in Pittsburgh, so I can respect this kind of lo-fi production.

6-5=2 is a film out of India where a group of friends go hiking on a random mountain path.  I'm having trouble remembering what their actual motivation is for this because I've had a lot of Indian found footage films I've ended up watching for this blog.  This movie turns into a bootleg version of the Blair Witch quickly (a film which was said to be the major influence) with faux graves appearing in the night, cameras catching weird behavior, and everyone being lost.

This isn't the best horror film I've ever seen, but it's also not the worst.  The Blair Witch and Paranormal Activity influence is far too heavy and feels more like copying than just an homage.  This is especially prevalent when they use an alternate Paranormal Activity ending where the remaining female walks up to the camera and cuts her throat in front of it.  The parts I liked were really more of things that maybe only I would enjoy.  For example, during one of the evenings a girl sits up and starts doing some sick thrash metal hair spins for about a minute.  I was waiting for some DRI or Municipal Waste to kick in, but it didn't.  The other thing I liked was a brief ghost appearance that lead to my note of "Oh shit! Special appearance by the Babadook!"  So as I said, only dumb stuff that got me excited.  As for the rest, they made a movie with what they had.  That's more than I can say for a lot of us.

I give 6-5=2 1 Suicidal Tendencies album out of 5:

Backcountry (2014) 1h 32m

This was almost it.  This was almost the "shit sandwich" review, but I watched the whole thing.  I can't believe I watched the whole thing...

Backcountry is a couple getting lost in the woods and then attacked by a bear.  It didn't have any real sense of survival.  It didn't draw me in to make me care about the characters.  The camera work was a mix of static, shoulder mounted shaky cam, and a few Go Pros which just made it a mess of trash.

If anything, Backcountry should serve as a warning on how not to hike trails and camp.  I'm not an avid woodsman but I enjoy camping and getting out of the city.  I was a Boy Scout in my teens.  A lot of this could have been avoided by simple back packing 101.  Did you need fancy potatoes to eat?  No.  Did you need a fucking map?  YES!

I give Backcountry 0 bear warning signs out of 5: