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Backcountry<\/strong>, a horror-survival story about a young couple whose camping trip ends poorly, has opened to good reviews.\u00a0 Manola Dargis of the NY Times says of the couple: “It\u2019s diverting, unnerving fun watching their descent, at least for a while.”\u00a0 She couldn’t be more right, although it’s\u00a0 not just for awhile, it’s for the entire movie, and that is why people go to see horror movies.<\/p>\n Films like this would be genuinely terrifying if you could put truly imagine yourself in the shoes of the main characters, sharing their experience in an unmediated way. This would not be entertainment.\u00a0 To make the horror palatable, writers and directors let you in on the secret beforehand, tacitly informing you of their awareness of your ambient anxiety.\u00a0 \u00a0Movies which stray from this awareness, think Hitchcock here, are rightly seen as more frightening.\u00a0 Modern “hardcore”horror movies seem to me to rely on the viewers startle-reflex.\u00a0 The insidious nature of Hitchcock is the intentionality with which he keeps you off-base.\u00a0 You never expected to be frightened by an ever-increasing flock of birds perching on playground equipment did you?\u00a0 Why would you?<\/p>\n But in Backcountry<\/strong>, as Dargis points out, you know from the moment the boyfriend refuses a map in the ranger’s office, that ill will befall the couple. In a sense that the couple deserves<\/strong> their misfortune.\u00a0 \u00a0When a bear finally attacks, you saw it coming, and at this point are watching to see how graphic the scene will be. It creates a mediocre meta-experience: not experiencing the horror itself (which would be too disturbing),\u00a0 but instead the experiencing the drama as a correlate of level of DEPICTION of the horror.\u00a0 How far will the director go? Films like this are considered successful if director goes slightly beyond what the audience expected. But expect it they must.\u00a0 In filmic language this is done through details like an axe being left too far away to be of use in defense, or by a person accidentally cutting themself before swimming in shark-infested waters.<\/p>\n