As with any mid budget, British horror film it is contractually obliged to star either Sean Pertwee or Danny Dyer; here we have Sean taking some young offenders out on a weekend to get to grips with nature on a remote Scottish island. Things are bound to go wrong.Now I should point out this is a small film; and it is happy to be what it is. There is no explosions, fireworks, monsters, statements on the human conditions or clever twists. It is a very simple thriller with the rough edges being obscured by British grit.When I saw the cover I expected this to be gruelling and hard hitting. It really isn't, I would happily watch this with my dad.There is some solid acting, some of the characters are interesting and because it plays low there is real tension as the characters try to escape.Most importantly it doesn't outstay its welcome. There is only so long you can watch someone run around a forest scared before you lose interest. The director got it spot on time wise.Good solid, kick about the park, horror flick.

The plot: After a youth offender is driven to suicide from bullying, his bunkmates are forced to go on a team-building exercise on an isolated island. However, they soon discover that they're not alone.Wilderness is a pretty obvious mash-up of themes borrowed from various sources: the island location, lack of adult supervision, and sadistic bullying of Lord of the Flies; the man vs man conflict of The Most Dangerous Game, as well as its hunter antagonist and island location; the revenge setup of Friday the 13th and countless other slashers; the survival horror of Deliverance; and "Broken Britain" thrillers about despicable, violent youths. There are also hints of other slasher and survival horror films, but, unlike some reviewers, I think Dog Soldiers and Battle Royale are kind of stretching it. So, obviously, the themes are not unique, and they have been dealt with in other media extensively. What makes this film worth watching? For me, it wasn't the plot, but I enjoyed it nonetheless.I'm not a big fan of teenage slashers. I got my fill back in the 1980s, and Scream did nothing to reinvigorate the genre for me. However, I liked the director's previous film, Deathwatch, and I'll never turn down an opportunity to watch Sean Pertwee in a low budget horror film. The cast ended up surprising me, because I thought some of them did a good job. The characterization was at times a bit minimalist, but it was put the good use. Steve, the main antagonist among the teens, was thoroughly despicable and the sort of character that you love to hate. He was played to perfection as a violent coward, and it's difficult to imagine how this film would have been memorable in any way without him. Unlike Deathwatch, the pacing is fairly brisk, and the writing is straightforward. The gore is, at times, comically gratuitous, but it avoids devolving into the torture porn that sometimes accompanies post-Saw survival horror (such as Rest Stop). Still, there are a few good SFX scenes that might stick with you for a day or two.Overall, it's a fairly enjoyable example of teenage survival horror, but it doesn't really pretend to be anything more than that. There are some interesting ideas about revenge vs justice, punishment vs rehabilitation, and the culpability of authority figures in teenage bullying, but none of them are given nearly as much attention as the melodramatic teenage drama. The gore might be too infrequent to satisfy true gorehounds, yet excessive enough to alienate some squeamish viewers. If none of this scares you off, I suggest you give this film a chance. It's not great, but it's enjoyable enough.

For much of the movie, I thought it carried along rather well. However I had a huge problem with the ending. The implication was that the soldier who was hunting them was special forces,i.e., SAS. How in the world can we be expected to believe that a street punk could not be easily handled by an SAS soldier in a knife fight? I thought that there was a lot of potential in this movie. The build up was all quite good. But it just utterly collapsed into an absurd pile at the end for me. This super soldier who hangs out there, ingeniously picking them all off one by one. And a two-bit street punk armed with an ax is able to get the best of him? Please! I completely regret wasting my time.

"Wilderness" is a tight and scary film.The plot: A group of teenage offenders are sent to a forest to rehabilitate after the death of another inmate. But someone and something is after them, killing them one by one. Can they escape? The movie is loaded with gore and suspense. Sean Pertwee is his usual professional self and the special effects are pretty well done. It's from The director of the underrated "Deathwatch", so you know it's going to be nothing less than good. The only drawback is the jarring use of video during the first killing. But that's a minor problem. I also like that all the characters are despicable and there's really no hero. The climax is very entertaining and bloody."Wilderness" is another winner from Michael J. Bassett. I highly recommend it.For more insanity, please visit: comeuppancereviews.com