“Wilderness Survival for Girls” combines the hot-cold-cruel emotions of female friendship with a thriller’s menacing moods. Like many a horror movie, the unfolding drama has moments that test credulity. Yet writer-directors Eli Despres and Kim Roberts’ teasing of genres and handling of actors also hints at psychologically insightful films to come.
Recent high-school grads Ruth, Deb and Kate head to a rustic cabin in Colorado’s high country. Deb (Megan Henning) and Ruth (Jeanette Brox) have been friends since childhood. Pink-haired and pierced, Kate (Ali Humiston) is the odd gal out. She is also the rebel the other two court emotionally.
Deb fumes as Ruth responds to Kate’s beck and call. Ruth seems unconcerned. Kate is at once aware and surprised by her power to disturb the other two’s friendship. Class is a subtext. Deb and Ruth are headed to college. Kate isn’t.
From the get-go the girls make a complicated triangle. The camera captures their messy geometry. As Deb and Ruth stand on the porch, looking out at the stunning vistas, Kate hangs back taking them in.
Brox, who won an award at the Los Angeles Film Festival for her performance, is intriguing as the brightest but also most socially naive of the women. Ruth’s confounded nature becomes crystalline when the girls capture an intruder named Ed (James Morrison) and he’s left in her unsteady charge.
Before this encounter is set in motion, the three women settle in front of a fire. Why hasn’t she been included in a trip to the cabin before, Kate asks. It turns out this is Deb and Ruth’s first adventure without their parents: Years earlier, one of their babysitters and her friend were killed in a nearby cabin.
Writer-director Roberts grew up in Denver. And “Wilderness Survival for Girls” takes this portion of its tale from the 1976 murders of two Denver women in a Gilpin County cabin.
Does “Wilderness Survival” honor that baleful memory? Hard to say. After all, the movie works deftly to keep the intruder’s role ambiguous. Is Ed merely a drifter flummoxed by his ability to scare the girls or is he in fact dangerous?
Like many horror-flick characters, the girls act in some boneheaded ways. Some of their choices seem to exist only to move the plot forward or make a didactic point. For instance, neither friendship nor fear (nor furtive desire) would have let Deb and Kate leave Ruth alone with Ed.
What the film does with insight is use thriller motifs to ponder how an act of gender violence can permeate the consciousness of young girls.
Even more relevant for Colorado audiences, “Wilderness Survival for Girls” makes the point that the very beauty of our state can hint at menace for women. This isn’t because slasher flicks make the woods a scary place. It’s because heart-rending headlines have said “Beware.”
Writer-directors Kim Roberts and Eli Despres will attend the Starz FilmCenter’s Friday- and Saturday-night screenings. Call 303-820-FILM or go to starzfilmcenter.com for more information.
“Wilderness Survival for Girls” | ** 1/2 RATING
NOT RATED|1 hour, 20 minutes|THRILLER|Written and directed by Eli Despres and Kim Roberts; photography by Robin Melhuish; starring Jeanette Brox, Megan Henning, Ali Humiston, James Morrison|Opens today at the Starz FilmCenter.
