The Hike [DVD]

The Hike is the story of 5 young women who celebrate the return of their solider friend by organising a hike through the woods. After arriving & a brief hike, they bump into a group of charming rock-climbers. Questionable odds of an all-female group bumping into an all-male group of the same age in the middle of nowhere aside; the two groups begin a flirtatious exchange that involves detailing where each other's camps are. The girls meanwhile begin to separate to sneak off with the boys and fail to return, the others begin to suspect something is amiss and decide to leave, but will they ever make it out of the woods alive?

The Hike kicks off well with a series of concise shots of brutal demises for some people other than the main cast, resultantly, we already know there is(are) a murderer(s) on the loose. What follows is a series of predictable cat & mouse chases throughout the woods, all the while set to an endless succession of panting, twig-snaps & leaf-rustling. It's not that the cast are half bad, just that the script is extremely wooden & stilted. None of the girls except for the soldier seem like they would have ever even been near a tent before this occasion; all of them are dressed in skimpy shorts and crop-tops (they are all suitably attractive for this slasher) - one of them is even an eastern-European cover model who wears high-heels and carries a LV bag the entire time. It's just a bit of a stretch.

The guys are a stereotypical bunch of prurient deviants (one guy is caught just randomly whacking off in the woods!!) with seemingly little or no explanation of their motivations. A couple of scenes just plain don't make any sense; the girls leave the roof down on their convertible car for three days in the woods, they even make a point of discussing this decision - to justify the shot I guess - but let's be honest; even if the weather is great, nobody fancies a Mercedes full of leaves, twigs & owl-poop. The second scene that is completely illogical is when the girls come across two of the rock-climbers skinny-dipping in the lake; but there is no way the guys could have known the girls would stumble across them, so were they just rolling around together in the buff before the girls & camera turned up? A puke-inducing montage scene of the two groups splashing each other follows with some completely unnecessary full-frontal male nudity (none of the girls are even naked!!)it's all a bit cliché.

Just when you thought nothing could top this stereotypical 'girls-running-screaming-from-a-mad-axeman' they break out the rape-card involving climbing ropes - it's pretty horrid viewing to be honest and seems to be relying on shock-value rather than decent writing. If you make a point of watching slashers with attractive girls then this is for you, otherwise, probably best to give it a swerve.

After a terrible opening sequence we are then introduced to a group of girls who have decided to get together and head off into the woods for a hiking trip.
At first I thought this was going to be a poor version of The Descent [DVD] [2005] but it wasn't even that.

The film is very boring and really dragged along. Dialogue is stilted and the characters are very one dimensional and poorly conceived.
The whole thing is very badly written and really is a waste of time. Every thing you've ever seen in a horror film that's made you roll your eyes at the stupidity of the characters happens here. Every bad horror cliché you've ever seen, that's here too.

There is a slight plus side in that the film is well shot and looks very nice and that was probably the only thing that kept me watching. That one plus factor pales into insignificance though when compared to how bad the film is as a whole.

Save your money and avoid this one.

This is not an easy film to watch... Mostly because it's a proper horror film.

I watch quite a few horrors and too many are all gore and no story or actual fear. The strangers is a great film because it's genuinely scary and the characters are believable and relatable and that is why I liked the hike!

Some people I know love it,some people don't, but it seems that those that don't like it are those that didn't get it.

It's a subversive subtle film that isn't for the faint hearted but if you want to see a real horror film spend a fiver and get a great movie!!!!