WILDERNESS

In a juvenile penitentiary on the English coast, the inmate Dave takes his own life, tired of the bullying acts he was subjected to by his cellmates. As punishment for the incident, the boys who shared the cell with Dave are taken to an uninhabited island, owned by the penitentiary, to strengthen the team spirit that seems totally foreign to them. But on that island, there is someone armed and dangerous who tries to eliminate all the boys. It is once again Great Britain that gives birth to a promising horror film director: Michael J. Bassett. Already noted with the war horror "Deathwatch – The Trench of Evil", Bassett ventures this time with the survival horror so dear to the North American tradition, and the result is convincing. More rhythmic and engaging compared to the previous film, this "Wilderness" presents itself as a raw and realistic snapshot of British youth "against". The group of boys who are the protagonists of the film represents a social microcosm composed of misfits who insist on breaking the rules that today's society imposes, and so we will have to deal with drug dealers, rapists, and murderers, all under twenty years old and with very subtle character nuances. In fact, in "Wilderness" there is no "good" guy, just as there is no "bad" guy; the one who might seem like the hero of the group is a selfish and ruthless murderer even towards the outcast of the group. In turn, the one presented as the real bastard of the story is nothing more than a victim, unlike the one shown to us as a victim. In short, the role-playing set up by Bassett, on a screenplay by Dario Poloni, is not the most predictable, although it can be criticized that the film focuses attention on two or three characters and then abandons the rest of the group to easy stereotyping. The survival horror setup is one of the most classic, with a first part of preparation and presentation of the characters and a second part of man-hunt and massacre. Numerous and well-orchestrated are the scenes of gore violence and pure splatter, among which are surely to be mentioned the disemboweling of one of the characters by a group of dogs and a tragic accident with a bear trap (strangely also present in the contemporary and compatriot "Severance"). Bassett's direction is dry and essential, very in tune with the atmosphere that is felt during the film and antithetical to the more sought-after style of the previous "Deathwatch"; perhaps it can be criticized that the English director has never placed scenes of suspense in both of his feature films, surely functional in the stories of horror and death that are told. In the cast of "Wilderness", Sean Pertwee (Dog Soldiers), in the role of the guard/educator Jed, and Toby Kebell (Alexander), the rebellious protagonist Callum, stand out. "Wilderness", therefore, lengthens the already long list of excellent films from Great Britain, distinguishing Shakespeare's homeland as one of the best hotbeds of contemporary cinematic terror.