Customer Reviews

Wilderness Survival for Girls

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

The film started out like the usual slasher flick, but then turned 180 degrees. Instead of looking at the scary external threat, it looked inwards at the teenage girls themselves - their fears, tortured friendship politics, sexuality and so on. Kind of ambitious, but the acting was a revelation, down to split-second facial expressions that gave away the insecurity, longing and occasional resentment beneath the old-friends-hangin'-out exterior. This a subtle story, with a lot of meat for late-night discussions of social/parental influences and how they shape everything from our self image to our attitudes towards the opposite sex and the way we react to unfamiliar/scary situations. Apart from being fresh and really unique, it certainly makes you look more closely at your friends' eyes to make sure they're not hiding something from you!

Three girls in an isolated cabin, one mysterious stranger. You know the drill. Or do you? "Wilderness Survival for Girls" is astoundingly low-budget. I'm talking a camera and food for the four cast members and that's about it. But it delivers a pretty solid experience that I can say was fairly unique and unexpected for what I assumed would be a slasher flick.

Our three girlfriends celebrate graduation by vacationing in the mountains. When they arrive at their cabin, they find a dead fox in their fridge. Is that ever a good omen? Next order of business: nude sunbathing, my favorite spectators' sport. The girls are cute, likable, and lighthearted, but they've got issues. There's the virgin (you know the type), the wild child, and the hot chick with glasses. I really like hot chicks with glasses. Anywho, faux creepiness happens (wild child is a prankster) and then after toking out and trying to get a round of scary stories going, a man suddenly enters the house. The girls hold him at gunpoint and tie him up. This is where the film gets damned unpredictable. The man has done nothing wrong. He has simply been living in a cabin he thought abandoned and come home after a long day of hiking. The girls are afraid if they let him go, he will come back and go all Friday the 13th on them. No phone, car won't start; what to do? Apparently, of you are wild child and glasses girl, you get into an argument and then go far away to make out. Fact: in any group of three hot girls, any two that are left alone will make out with each other. It's science. And when I say "it's science" I mean I made it up. Don't burst my bubble, 'kay?

At this point, the virgin decides that wild child's advice (given earlier, while sunbathing) that she should masturbate more was really smart. Especially to put into practice while she is alone with a strange man tied to a chair and a gun present. Why not go to the bathroom for some impromptu sexual self-stimulation? Oh right; the strange man tied to the chair. DOH! Okay, the stupid in this movie ends there. It doesn't unfold how you think it will. In fact, it's quite brilliant, disturbing, and realistic how it does.

The picture quality is one thing I found annoying about this movie. It's very inconsistent and grainy; when I said "camera and food for the four cast members" I wasn't joking. And it wasn't a very good camera, either. However, the film is skillfully and professionally shot. The performances are solid and each character keeps you guessing. Will the girls' friendship fall apart under the tension, leaving them easily manipulated by the stranger? Will the virgin find love in the oddest of places? Who -if anyone- is the real psychopath and what can paranoia and the instinct for self-preservation do to a person under stress? Let's just say that the entire situation could have been handled better by every person involved and leave it at that.

There are a few exploitation elements in this film, but that's not why you should see it. A bit of nudity and some girl-girl kissing do not a sexploitation flick make. There is not a lot of violence, gore, or even scares here. This film is about tension, human nature, and poor choices that end badly for everybody involved. On a budget this small, one couldn't ask for much more. Had this film played out in a more traditional way, I'd give it 3 or 3 1/2 stars, but I think this is a really worthwhile piece that was well-crafted and at under 80 minutes, doesn't overstay it's welcome so I'm giving it a boost for getting the job done without resorting to excessive sex and violence. Check it out for sure, you may be pleasantly surprised.

... and the parts are pretty good on their own. But the collection of relative unknowns (writers, directors, actors, composers, best boys) fits together perfectly in this film. A teen slasher film turned on its head, Wilderness Survival for Girls has a concise and refreshing premise -- three teenage girls encounter a strange man in a cabin in the woods and, out of fear, take HIM hostage. It owes a bit to Roman Polanski's Death And The Maiden (1994), but with a decidedly younger and more universal feel. The filmmakers find the perfect tone to set, and the actors more than meet it - all four performances are nuanced and compelling.

Wilderness Survival For Girls is not a showy, sprawling epic; it is a clean, tight flick that knows what marks it wants to hit and nails them exactly.

How anyone could find this film entertaining is a wonder. The story involves 3 girls that just graduated high school and decided to go to a family member's cabin in the mountains for a weekend of girl-talk before having to set the course for their futures.

Granted, the basic idea isn't original but I thought it still could produce some new suspenseful fare to watch -- believe me, it didn't

Most 'suspense' films require you to allow characters to make a few decisions that lack common sense/logic in order to get the mystery going. This film requires you to abandon ALL reasonableness during the entire film in order to accept that these girls are unable to figure out situations that any 9- or 10 year old could deal with easily.

Because I'd read another review that said there were surprising twists, I wasted time watching this entire film. Surprising twists? Um, no! The script is simply a juvenile fantasy written by a couple of people obviously titillated by bare breasted young women whose maturity was stunted by ... who knows (and who cares!) what? There is NO believable drama and nothing even remotely suspenseful here to enjoy.

The only survival aspect of this film is your own ability to survive dealing with the loss of time you experienced by watching it.

Skip it! "Wilderness Survival For Girls" is just plain awful.

Wilderness Survival For Girls (2004) is a film that explores the relationships between three friends, and how they handle a crisis, while on a retreat at a cabin in the woods. The movie does a good job of character development, and portraying the dynamic between the three girls, but there are some issues with the path the story takes, when they are faced with a threatening situation.

Ruth (Jeanette Brox) has invited her best friend Deborah (Megan Henning), and her friend Kate (Ali Humiston), to join her at her family's cabin in the Colorado woods. That night while the girls are gathered in the living room, a strange man named Ed (James Morrison) enters the cabin. Ed has been living in the cabin and doing some hunting, but finds himself facing the barrel of his own rifle, as Kate orders the other girls to tie him to a chair.

The girls spend the night in the living room watching over him, but an argument breaks out, and Deborah runs out of the cabin. Kate decides to follow her, leaving the rifle with Ruth, to keep watch over Ed. Adept at reading the situation, Ed begins to gain Kate's confidence, and eventually convinces her to untie him. When the other girls return, Ed has the rifle, and two of the girls quickly find themselves tied to chairs. Someone will die, in what will be a life changing evening for everyone involved.

With veteran actor James Morrison solidly anchoring the film, the young cast does a very good job, mostly coming off as believable and real. Megan Henning and Jeanette Brox are particularly convincing, capturing the angst and uncertainty of youth. Husband and wife, Eli Despres and Kim Roberts, wrote and directed the movie, which was shot on location at their cabin. Their film works for the most part, except that in key moments when lives could at stake, the characters seem to lose focus, don't act in particularly credible ways, and some really questionable things happen. The odd turns the story takes in key places, doesn't completely ruin the film, but it does detract from its overall impact.

There is some mild violence, but those looking for frantic chases, torture, or major bloodshed, will be disappointed. Wilderness Survival For Girls is more of a tale of suspense, rather than a straight horror film, or struggle against nature. There are still some tense moments, and the performances by the young actors is engaging and mostly convincing. Because of the three young girls, the film may have a certain appeal to female viewers. A similar film featuring young girls in danger is Surviving Crooked Lake (2010).

From the first 5 minutes you could tell how the film was going to unfold. The girls are insecure in who they are and of course like most high school girls they are ready to stab each other in the back whenever possible because three's a crowd. One girl is over sexualized while the others aren't. Another reviewer said it well when they said this was a good movie for 17 year old boys who might want some insight into the minds of high school girls (FYI, this isn't what it''s really like guys). The things that the girls have happen to them are things that they bring on themselves and for one of them it is the stuff of demented fantasies that she probably wishes would happen.

You want a good movie? Go watch House of 9 or Thirst. Don't waste your time here and don't give 3 teenage girls a gun when they have no idea how to use it.

Very slow and boring, unless your some guy looking for insight on dumb 17 year old girls, they were "stoned" up until the "strange man"comes in and then its like they never drank that 1 beer and 1 joint, bad plot, no action, not a horror or really a thriller, and nowhere close to a slasher film, im amazed that this is the lowest rating thus far!!!!!! only reason i gave it 2 stars and not 1 was that it only wasted 85 minutes of my time.

Extremely well written and acted, this film avoids the idiot-plot driven cliches of survival films while playing the tropes to keep you off-balance. A mature, subtle film dressed up as a thriller, the thick suspense on this film delivers both on its thriller elements and on its more thoughtful threads without compromising either. Top-notch acting from the three unknowns and another amazing performance from James Morrison make this film the epitome of what good indie can be. Fantastically well done. Bravo!

Quite frankly, I'd pay to watch him read the phone book. But it turned out to be a very interesting little independent film. Shot by a husband and wife team and made on a literal shoestring, it takes the conventions of teenage slasher films and the angst of teenage coming-of-age films and combines the two for a fairly satisfying bit of storytelling. I even watched it a second time with the director commentary on, and that was almost as good as the movie, itself. It's essentially a primer for making a low-budget independent film. Plus, all the actors (there are only four) are very good. James and Jeanette Brox, the girl who plays Ruth, are better than very good. Their one-on-one scenes are just riveting.

SPOILER AHEAD!

The reason that I only gave the movie 4 stars is that I occasionally found the girls to be so incredibly stupid that it really grated on me. I understand that teenage girls aren't usually rocket scientists, and I realize that these three girls were also stoned/drunk, which is never conducive to making good choices, but Kate and Deb's decision to leave Ruth alone with the man, not once, but twice, made me want to throw something at the screen. There's stupid, and then there's terminally stupid. On the other hand, that decision gives the audience more of the twisted emotional pas de deux between the man and Ruth, and it is a dance that is well worth watching.