WARNING: The following contains major spoilers for Backcountry and Out Come the Wolves.
One of the oldest conflicts in narrative cinema is the ongoing battle of man vs. nature. Humanity may have descended from cave-dwelling Neanderthals, but over the years, we’ve evolved to depend on modern comforts and conveniences like sturdy homes, motorized vehicles, and grocery stores brimming with pre-packaged food. Many of us engage very little with the great outdoors and find it quite shocking when we’re confronted with the life-or-death consequences of nature’s cruel unpredictability. No horror creative tackles this particular theme like Adam MacDonald. The Canadian filmmaker specializes in bringing intimacy to harrowing stories of brutal survival and man’s struggle to endure the unforgiving wild.
His 2014 film Backcountry follows a couple on an extended hiking trip who wander into the territory of a massive black bear. A decade later, his 2024 release Out Come the Wolves follows two bickering hunters who become the prey of a pack of wild beasts. Injecting gender into this delicate dance, MacDonald uses these stories as vehicles for unflinching explorations of toxic masculinity. In fact, both stories follow women who transcend their partners’ foolhardy attempts to dominate the wilderness and find the strength to survive on their own.
Backcountry follows Alex (Jeff Roop) and Jenn (Missy Peregrym), an urban couple backpacking in the provincial woods. Alex has fond childhood memories of hiking this park, though he has not been to the area in many years. He hopes to summit a challenging trail and propose to Jenn overlooking a picturesque lake. But they arrive to find nothing but a sea of trees and realize they have no idea where they are. Alex has led them away from their intended path and into the territory of a large black bear, ignoring signs of danger along the way. The terrifying creature pulls the screaming man out of their flimsy tent and devours him in front of Jenn’s horrified eyes.
Out Come the Wolves also stars Peregrym, but this time as Sophie, a seasoned hunter vacationing at her family’s remote cabin. She’s brought along her sophisticated fiancé Nolan (Damon Runyan) who hopes to write an essay about the experience. Her childhood friend Kyle (Joris Jarsky) fills out the awkward party when his own girlfriend fails to make the trip. Kyle is clearly in love with Sophie and hints at a romantic pact they made decades ago. The next day’s hunting trip gets off to a rocky start as the men are forced to rely on each other despite their competing motivations. When wolves attack Nolan, Kyle leaves him to die on the forest floor, perhaps hoping that Sophie will turn to him for consolation. But she demands Kyle take her to the scene of the attack where a pack of wolves lie and wait.
Both films climax with shockingly brutal sequences presented in grueling close-up shots. Victims scream while animals shred their tender flesh exposing bone in ragged wounds that spurt fresh jets of blood and drip with torn viscera. The intimate and unsteady camera confronts us with the terror of these attacks. Like the doomed characters, we lose track of logistical reality and long to escape each horrific scene. However, MacDonald resists the temptation to demonize these ferocious animals. They are not mystically evil beasts targeting humans, but hungry predators who sense prey in their vicinity. In fact, it’s the stories’ male characters who prove to be most dangerous, making grave miscalculations that put everyone in danger. By assuming the world is theirs to dominate, the men wander in way over their heads and prove incapable of escape.
Cosplaying the Hero
In Backcountry, Alex is an idealistic and well-meaning landscaper who believes his childhood adventures hiking in the park make him an expert in the expansive wilderness. When he learns that the Blackfoot Trail has been closed for the season, he insists on traversing the deserted area anyway and ignores the sage advice of an experienced park ranger. He also refuses a complimentary map, hoping to show off his knowledge and cosplay a rugged outdoorsman for his would-be wife.
Alex mocks Jenn’s insistence on bringing bear spray and hides her phone in the car, leaving them with no way to contact the outside world. It’s not long before we learn that despite some rudimentary hiking skills, Alex has massively overestimated his ability to guide this trip. Noticing signs of a large predator, Jenn begs to go home, but he plays on her guilt and convinces her to keep following him deeper into the dangerous woods. Consumed with plans for an idyllic proposal, he steers them directly into danger.
With Out Come The Wolves, Nolan is a similarly unskilled survivalist, but he at least has the wherewithal to know his own limitations. The magazine editor is hoping to challenge his connection to the fundamentals of life by experiencing the act of hunting up close. Nolan assumes he can pick up the art of bow hunting in a day or two and then filter the experience through his intellectual lens.
He’s so confident that he intends to leave his cell phone behind, abdicating all responsibility for his own safety. But when the time comes to shoot a deer, he can’t bring himself to pull the trigger. Confronted by wolves, he becomes entirely useless and depends on Kyle and Sophie to extract him from the dangerous locale. Both Alex and Nolan are hobbyists using the wilderness to inflate their own egos and assume that mere academic knowledge is all they need to survive. Raised in patriarchy, they believe that the world will facilitate their domination and can’t fathom a situation out of their control.
Even their instincts make each situation worse. When Jenn hears a bear lurking around their campfire, Alex insists they retreat to the tent. The next morning, he realizes that he’s left the bag containing his ax by the campfire, abandoning his only method of self-defense. Spying the bear outside, he repeatedly unzips the door to see if the animal is still lurking about, drawing its eyes straight to their hiding place.
Were he to simply wait quietly, the creature would likely wander away. Nolan becomes a similar target when he panics in the presence of a snarling wolf. He and Kyle return to their felled doe only to find the creature making a meal out of their kill. Kyle orders Nolan to freeze then attempts to unshoulder his rifle and drive the animal away. Unfortunately, the heel catches on the notch of his bow and he cannot access his gun without making a big move. Nolan lunges for the rifle, causing the wolf to attack within seconds, tearing into his shoulder and neck.
The Bigger Threat
It’s at this moment that we realize the danger each man represents. With Nolan incapacitated, Kyle sees an opportunity to advance his romantic agenda. The seasoned outdoorsman points his gun at the injured man, mirroring Nolan’s earlier insistence that they put the wounded deer out of its misery. He leaves his rival to die on the forest floor, then flees, telling Sophie a sanitized version of the tragic story. Were Kyle to take Nolan back on his ATV, they would have no reason to go back into the woods. But Sophie insists on retrieving her lost fiancé and makes Kyle take her to the wolves’ hunting ground.
Though likely in shock, Kyle’s deadly decision is largely the result of a bruised ego. Earlier in the film, he hints at Sophie’s habit of missing on purpose to make him feel like the better marksman. Perhaps he hopes to inflate his self-worth by bagging two deer when Nolan cannot bring himself to pull the trigger. Failing to get a clean shot with a second target, he loses the injured animal in the woods and then finds wolves have claimed his first kill. With nothing left to show for himself, he orchestrates Nolan’s death then heads back to camp hoping to claim Sophie as a consolation prize.
Backcountry features a more overt depiction of this masculine conflict in Brad (Eric Balfour), a stranger who approaches Jenn at the campsite. Noticing his armload of freshly caught fish, she invites him to stay for dinner, much to Alex’s chagrin. While male insecurities clearly play into this conflict, Brad intentionally antagonizes the situation. He insists Jenn also cook potatoes, blatantly overruling Alex’s own suggestion. He rudely challenges Alex’s knowledge of the park and even pisses right next to their campfire—literally marking his territory in the couple’s temporary home.
A generous read of his frustrating behavior would posit that as a seasoned guide and lifelong outdoorsman, Brad senses Alex’s ineptitude and hopes to reveal the dangerous situation he’s creating for Jenn. But his overt chauvinism makes it impossible for the couple to see him as anything more than a threat to Alex’s manhood. Were Brad to actually ask them about their plans and share his extensive knowledge, he could possibly save the couple from their ill-conceived plan. But he’s only interested in dominating the interaction. He presents as a threat, distracting from the dangers of Alex’s own recklessness.
Feminine Nature
Both stories conclude with a woman traversing deadly terrain and escaping with her life while her irresponsible partners die in the woods. In Backcountry, it’s Jenn’s justified fear that saves her life. Her bear spray momentarily drives the creature out of the tent and allows her to escape and the road flare Alex mocked provides light as she wanders through the darkened forest. In Out Come the Wolves, Sophie is the rugged outdoorsman the men are pretending to be and tougher than both her male counterparts. After a brutal fall from her motorcycle, she realigns her dislocated wrist then shoots an arrow at an approaching wolf. She literally drags Nolan out of the forest where Kyle has succumbed to another attack. For all the men’s bluster, the women prove to be capable survivalists and make their way back to civilization.
Though they have wildly differing levels of experience, both women prevail by adapting to their situations and working with their fearsome surroundings. Jenn sleeps in a tree after fleeing her campsite and splints her broken ankle with branches found next to a waterfall. After walking through the night and collapsing with fatigue, she wakes up to see a majestic caribou just inches from where she rests. Munching on foliage, the animal locks eyes with Jenn before wandering away, essentially leading her to their waiting canoe and a river escape.
In Out Come the Wolves, Sophie has already concluded her career as a hunter. She once made a similar connection with a deer she planned to shoot and decided to no longer hunt animals for food or sport. Though Jenn does use bear spray and Sophie kills several wolves, both resort to violence only in self-defense. They release their own egos and become one with the forest, instinctively managing to find their way home.
Overtly man vs. nature narratives, both films contain a stealthy warning about the dangers of toxic masculinity. Conditioned to dominate every environment, each man becomes consumed with boosting his own ego and fails to see the dangerous situation he’s created. Though set in the woods, they are timely reflections of real men increasingly using their patriarchal power to exert control over forces of nature. Assuming that every situation will inherently favor their own comfort and pleasure, they try to dominate others and force their own agenda with no regard for the harm they create.
But like nature, our personal identities, romantic desires, reproductive capabilities, and bodily functions will not bend to their myopic systems of control. Like Alex, Brad, Nolan, and Kyle, they will eventually learn that you can only suppress the wilderness for so long before it comes roaring back in your face. The men of Backcountry and Out Come the Wolves find out the hard way that nature does not care about their fragile egos and learn brutal lessons about the feminist will to survive. By assuming that the world should bend to their will, they end up devoured by their own toxic incompetence while the women they tried to impress find the courage to leave them behind.
Categorized:Editorials
