The Backwoods (2006)

Director: Koldo Serra
Synopsis: Gary Oldman, Paddy Considine, Aitana Sánchez-Gijón, Virginie Ledoyen, Lluís Homar, Yaiza Esteve

SYNOPSIS

In the 1970s, two couples take a trip away to the north of Spain, where one of them spent a lot of time as a child and is renovating his parents' old home. They're not looked upon kindly by the locals (although grudgingly accepted when it transpires that one of the couples speak fluent Spanish) but they keep themselves to themselves - up until they discover a deformed young girl locked away in a shed.

REVIEW

Since Frightfest co-organiser Paul McEvoy has joined the team at the UK Horror Channel (formerly known as Zone Horror), I've noticed a definite rise in quality of fare on the channel. While there's still the fair share of shot-on-DV zombie movies and crappy knock-offs produced by The Asylum, many of these are now being replaced by actual quality movies. What surprised me with this movie is that not only is it a great movie that wouldn't look out of place on the regular Frightfest schedule, I'd never actually heard of it before!

This is especially surprising as it's a movie with a definitely A-list pair of leads, and it's a Spanish co-production, so with that being my current adopted home, you'd have thought I'd have seen something...

Either way, it's a solid production with a lot of concentration on the character aspects of the piece. Oldman is cocky and arrogant, obviously comfortable with the language and local customs of the village (although he's not been there for many years), which Considine is the fish-out-of-water, trying desperately to understand what's going on around him and dealing with a rocky marriage on top of it all.

The story is slow-moving and familiar in many ways - we have the redneck hicks, the deadly secret and the fight for survival. But, the direction is solid, the script tight and the performances almost universally excellent with a few nice surprises near the end.

it's a well-kept secret as far as I'm concerned (although feel free to call me out on this if it seems obvious to you!), and I'll be very happy if gems like this surface on the channel in future.

8 / 10