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Bookmark this pageWilderness (2006)
Director: Michael J Bassett
Movie review
From Time Out London
A bloody slice of survival horror in which ‘Scum’ meets ‘Dog Soldiers’, with a side order of ‘Lord of the Flies’. Following the suicide of the much-bullied Davie, jaded warder Pertwee and a volatile bunch of young offenders – psycho Steve, dumb sidekick Lewis, loner Callum, joker Blue, his pal Jethro and wimpy Lindsay – are sent to a remote, uninhabited island on a character-building exercise. Genre fans will recognise the formula: a group ventures into alien territory and bad shit happens. These tough city kids are at the mercy of the unfamiliar rural environment, even before a mystery attacker unleashes a pack of killer dogs and a sheaf of crossbow arrows. And as their camouflaged assailant knows all too well, this threat from without is exacerbated by the explosive tensions within. Taut and visceral, ‘Wilderness’ is a marked improvement on director Michael J Bassett’s muddled debut feature, ‘Deathwatch’, thanks, one suspects, to Dario Poloni’s bleak, misanthropic script. But this is also the film’s Achilles heel: some may find it hard to care about the fate of these selfish, hateful toe-rags.Author: Nigel Floyd
Time Out London Issue 1877: August 9-16 2006
Cast & crew
Director: Michael J Bassett
Producer: Robert Bernstein, John McDonnell, Douglas Rae
Cast: Toby Kebbell, Alex Reid, Sean Pertwee, Luke Neal, Stephen Wight, Richie Campbell, Adam Deacon, Ben McKay full cast
Genre(s): Horror
Rated: 15
Duration: 94 mins
UK Release: Aug 11 2006
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