The relational tension unnerves you early on and, while not entirely surprising, manages to showcase a threat of mother nature without demonizing the main threat.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Sep 20, 2023

Adam MacDonald’s colossal debut features a unique ursine nightmare impelled by human error.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Jul 21, 2023

Everything goes just the perfect amount of terrifying.

| Jul 2, 2021

Plays on a basic fear, the idea of being consumed and it does it well.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Feb 3, 2021

Adam MacDonald shows skill in building suspense and highlighting character development. And Missy Peregrym shows a lot promise as an actress. I hope to see more of both sometime down the line.

| Original Score: B | Jul 16, 2020

While Backcountry is a completely different beast of a film, it should be admired for how well it pulls off such a familiar genre.

| Jun 15, 2019

The story works as an allegorical view of masculinity's destructive elements, using a bear as a symbol of the dangers in letting such elements take hold.

| Original Score: 4/5 | May 1, 2019

Lascivious Irishmen, poor communication, lonely park rangers and bears: armed with these few devices MacDonald gamely shows us how a romantic camping trip gone wrong is no walk in the woods.

| Original Score: 8/10 | Apr 17, 2019

No film in recent memory better depicts how adventurous urbanites get into trouble outdoors than Backcountry, a tense Canadian thriller from Andrew MacDonald.

| Feb 8, 2019

Enticing wilderness survival thriller.

| Original Score: B- | Nov 4, 2018

The anxiety is palpable and various threats are immediately recognizable, communicating how illusory the concept of control is, and how frightening it can be when it's lost.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Sep 10, 2018

If you can get through the film's slowly unfolding portrayal of a troubled relationship, you'll be rewarded, as it were, by an effective wilderness thriller.

| Original Score: 3.5/5 | Aug 28, 2018

For what it intends to do, BACKCOUNTRY is an almost perfectly realized film, making the best of its humble budget and exploiting its stunning locations to maximum effect.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | May 23, 2017

Backcountry ultimately feels like a short film that's been clumsily expanded to a feature-length running time.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Jan 19, 2016

Backcountry will make some think twice about going into the woods for vacation.

| Original Score: B- | Jan 3, 2016

The film's main source of anxiety remains the lone, terrified figure, thoroughly unprepared for the savage beast who attacks, and faced at last by an uncaring natural world.

| Original Score: 5/10 | Jan 3, 2016

MacDonald does a nice job of building up to an emotional finale that doesn't betray his dedication to brutal realism.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Jan 3, 2016

Given that most killer bear movies are either intentionally cheesy or unwittingly inept, it's nice to see a new one that takes the concept seriously and forgoes easy splatter in favor of some strong, simple, sustained suspense.

| Jan 2, 2016

Sometimes you eat the bear, sometimes the bear eats you, as the philosopher Sam Elliott said. Backcountry succeeds by not straying far from that core belief.

| Nov 12, 2015

Somewhere around the mid-point the wide open spaces they're traversing close in around them to become an oppressive and claustrophobic nightmare.

| Sep 8, 2015