Backwoods

Now available on DVD

Cast:



Haylie Duff as Lee



Mark Rolston as Ricks



Ryan Merriman as Adam



Danny Nucci as Perry Walters



Craig Zimmerman as Dash



Troy Winbush as Basso



Deborah Van Valkenburgh as Ruth

Directed by: Marty Weiss

Review:

Hillbillies.

Don’t ya just love ‘em?

They never met a big breasted, hot camper chick in tight clothing they didn’t like. They are almost drawn to them like flies to sh**.

Whether it’s the inbred mutant type found in The Hills Have Eyes, or the, um, anal retentive type found in Deliverance or, or the numerous chew-spitting, large spoon eating types found in a number of the Friday the 13th movies, or ceremonial cult rape type found in Backwoods. One thing remains the same, they all love tracking down the hotties and giving them the business. And by business I mean usually rape, torture and kill them.

And they universally hate tourists. Especially younger tourists that love to drink and have sex.

Backwoods begins as we see, natch, a big breasted hot chick in skimpy clothing calling out to her boyfriend to plays a prank on her. Bad move. Hillbillies hate pranks.

You guessed it. Next thing, the dude is dead and the chick is off to an underground cave somewhere to be seduced by the alpha male of the pack. And by seduced, I mean tied up, surrounded by other hillbillies and then probed by a dude that looks like he wrestles for the WWE.

From there, we are introduced to a group of business types that are going into the wilderness to participate in what the leader calls “corporate tactics.” This is just a fancy word for paintball as numerous characters point out.

Unfortunately, they ask the wrong hillbilly at the wrong gas station about directions to a decent place for paintballing. He mistakes their “corporate tactics” lingo as something out of the FBI and directs them to a campground where the same hillbillies as before take them all captive or kill them. See they are fearful the FBI is after them because they are a religious cult centered on some woman that holds some influence over them. They also follow the word of Drake from Aliens (real name Mark Rolston).

So they go about torturing some and killing others in order to get more info out of them about their connections to the FBI – there are none, obviously. The women? Well they are gonna to get “pleasured” by the huge hillbilly in order to increase the population of the cult.

Now this explains why the first two people at the beginning of the movie were killed, they wanted the chick (who helps out the newly arrived ladies) for breeding purposes.

Backwoods stars Haylie Duff, tween sensation Hillary Duff’s uglier, yet still hot, sister. You know if Haylie gets more gigs like this it could move her into a whole new category of film making. She could be the yang to Hillary’s ying. Doing the exact opposite of the feel-good 13-year-old-targeted films Hillary makes and instead go for the nasty, brutal horror side of things. I, for one, would welcome it as Haylie while she doesn’t put on an awesome performance – the material really doesn’t give her a chance – as a leading heroine she’s more than suitable and looks good enough (while not as cute as her sister, she’s still a hot piece of ass) to fit the part – although she may think about shedding some clothes next time.

Backwoods isn’t bad at all, surprisingly so. Instead of the whole cast getting taken one-by-one they are taken as a group and then actually escape as a group at one point. Some of the plot points in-between are pretty milquetoast and could have been a bit better but all-in-all worth checking out for sure.

Backwoods also features:

• One of the best last stands while stuck to a wooden trap with spikes through a dude ever filmed.



• Amped up gore from the TV version of the film as this is uncut.



• A semblance of a budget as this originally aired on Spike (probably why no one saw it) and not the SyFy (Sci Fi Channel).



• A great unintentional homage to The Last of the Mohicans.



• Not so subtle Beverly Hillbillies references.



• First ever (?) death from an allergy inhaler.



• Most randomly placed (and only) grenade in history.

Don’t get me wrong, Backwoods isn’t The Hills Have Eyes. Hell, it isn’t even the remake of The Hills Have Eyes. But it is a decent romp.

Extras:

There aren’t any. Too bad as I would have loved to see Haylie Duff off camera talking about her horror movie experience and such. But oh well.