Backwoods

What could be more inspiring than a wilderness weekend? Leaving the confines of the office behind to commune with nature in the great outdoors with co-workers as a team building and bonding experience. Here you can get in touch with your inner strengths. You can discover yourself—and your enemy. John Dash (Craig Zimmerman, My Father), a brash executive with Global Gaming Systems, sees human survival as a skill to be honed and cherished in the boardroom and beyond. That’s why each year he sponsors a weekend survival getaway to test the mettle of seven lucky employees, to challenge them in mind, body, and spirit. This year it’s a paintball war in the remote woods of northern California. The players, including gung-ho Perry (Danny Nucci, World Trade Center) and Basso (Troy Winbush, Medical Investigation), the young and lovely Maggie (Mimi Michaels, Shark Swarm), and Adam (Ryan Merriman, Final Destination 3) and Lee (Haylie Duff, Napoleon Dynamite), who see the expedition only as mandatory for their jobs, leave Los Angeles behind and head out as urban Rambos ready for anything. Divided into separate camps on the edge of the forest, the players prepare for “engagement.” Against Adam’s better judgment, his Alpha team has set up outside of his safe, carefully mapped area. His concern turns to dread when their first hit—a shadowy figure stalking the woods—is not a member of either team. When they suddenly lose radio contact with Bravo, fear takes hold and they flee for their lives. Luckily, they come upon the local sheriff, Deputy Rick (Mark Rolston, The Shawshank Redemption). But luck just isn’t on their side. Rick is the head of a crazed survivalist commune following a white supremacist dogma. He’s not taking the players to safety. He’s leading them to the isolated backwoods where the commune can’t wait to teach these city intruders a real lesson in staying alive. Between the locked cages, crystal meth laboratory, and cult mentality, it’s clear no one is playing games. A psychological thriller with a gut-level punch, Backwoods plunges you into the terrifying wild, just beyond the civilized world.