Backcountry

Outfitted with a now-standard suspense-thriller “based on a true story” come-on, filmmaker Adam MacDonald's foreboding Canadian drama follows two ill-prepared campers from a nameless city who enter a vast forest containing deadly threats. Outdoors enthusiast Alex (Jeff Roop), a young entrepreneur who is not as trailwise as he thinks he is, drags tenderfoot girlfriend Jess (Missy Peregrym) on a weekend trip deep into national park woods for her first camping trip. One lone, rakish Irish guide (Eric Balfour) invites himself into the couple's camp, triggering a jealous streak in Alex and lingering suspicions. And then the pair get hopelessly lost while also attracting the attention of a voracious, marauding bear. Although it does feature brief but vivid gore, the film is more of a tension-ratcheting character study that does for wilderness treks what Open Water did for scuba expeditions, successfully conveying the plight of helpless protagonists floundering in a natural world that is as much pitiless as it is pretty. Recommended. (C. Cassady)