Wild Country is a low budget Scottish horror film – costing approximately £1 million – filmed in the late Autumn of 2004. It had a limited release in the UK and played at assorted film festivals around the world so, despite it’s limitations, it has to be hoped that it managed to turn a bit of a profit, especially in the video market.
The story is reminiscent of several bigger, better films: An American Werewolf in London, obviously, but also more recent productions such as Micheal Bassett’s Wilderness & Neil Marshall’s Dog Soldiers. A small group of troubled Glaswegian teenagers are taken to the middle of the Scottish moors and left to orienteer their way to a rendezvous point the next day. Unfortunately, they manage to get lost, and promptly run into a particularly nasty pair of werewolves, which pick them off one by one.
That’s about it, really. It’s a slim narrative that’s fleshed out by some semi-decent characterisation. Most of the young actors were non-professionals, and there’s a certain realistic, Ken Loach style feel to their interaction. The protagonist, Kelly Ann, is a young girl who has just been encouraged to give her child up for adoption; Lee (Martin Comptson, the most experienced of the younger performers having working on films like Red Road, Sweet Sixteen and Doomsday) is the ducking-and-diving father who’s honest enough to realise that he couldn’t cope with parenthood; David & Mark (Kevin and Jaimie Quinn) a pair of authentically bickering brothers; Louise (Nicola Muldoon) a chavette. Considering their inexperience and age, all of these performers do a decent enough job, without ever really convincing (for a comparison, watch Tony Kebbell – a truly powerful young actor – in Wilderness).
And that’s one of the films problems. Led as it is by the youngsters, it feels rather like one of those old Childrens Film Foundation features. It has a similar restriced running time (66 minutes); variable pacing, shakey production values, plot illogicalities and hokey effects (created by Bob Keen, who also worked on the superior Isolation at around the same time). And, despite the additional gore, it’s hard to imagine it appealing to anybody who isn’t the same age as its characters.
In it’s favour, it does have a winning performance from Peter Capaldi as a shallow trendy vicar and the scenery is absolutely stunning. But, despite Wild Country being an admirable attempt at merging British realism with horror; it doesn’t really work, leaving it feeling insubstantial and rather amateurish. I’ve seen worse, and at least it’s short enough to prevent it from becoming dull, but it’s not one I can highly recommend.