Movie Reviews

Director David Hackl (Saw V) takes you right in the Alaskan wilderness where a thoroughly pissed off bear is on the loose and killing people left and right. Sound familiar? That’s because you have maybe seen Backcountry a couple of months ago, which pretty much came with the same premise.

James Marsden and Thomas Jane star as Rowan and Beckett, two estranged brothers who run into each other when Rowan shows up again in the small town where they were taught by their now deceased father to respect the wild. Rowan tells Beckett he wants to venture deep into the woods to find some kind of closure, while actually he’s been asked by a mutual friend’s wife to find her husband who is missing after going out on a hunting trip with a couple of poachers.

Logically, the two brothers, along with Beckett’s deaf wife Michelle (Piper Perabo) and Rowan’s former girlfriend Kaley (Michaela McManus), all end up being preyed on by the killer bear. Which by the way is not your average bear. This particular bear (credited as Bart the Bear) is apparently capable of carrying out stealth attacks, which is no small feat for an animal of this size. Oh yeah, Billy Bob Thornton is running around in the woods as well as Douglass, another local hunter with a muddled past.

If you are big on character development, then you might want to take a pass. In spite of a more than capable cast, they scratch the surface. Unlike the bear, who pretty much scratches right through anything or anyone he encounters. The bear attacks are okay though, with Hackl not holding back on the gore and going all out in the final act, which comes with a badass prosthetic, some quiestionable CGI work and a finale that’s just a wee bit over the top.

If you’re looking for an entertaining animal attack type B-movie, then Red Machine (originally released as Into The Grizzly Maze) is not terrible. But you’d be better off watching Backcountry instead.