Canadian filmmaker Adam MacDonald’s latest nature inspired thriller Out Come the Wolves is one of those movies based around animal attacks that’s a metaphor for something larger. Yes, there are wolves that come out to put a world of hurt onto a trio of hapless characters out for a ”friendly” hunting trip, but that all comes secondary to the baggage these people bring to the party. Out Come the Wolves (which reminds me of Rancid’s landmark album every time I think about it) certainly shares a lot of common DNA with the likes of The Grey and The Edge, both films about struggling, arguing humans with traumas and hidden secrets put into opposition with harsh conditions and bloodthirsty animals. But whereas those films were trying to be snappy about things, MacDonald’s film is a lot more blunt, straightforward, and obvious. Not that this is a bad thing.
Sophie (Missy Peregrym) is bringing her big city magazine writer/editor boyfriend, Nolan (Damon Runyan), to the woods so he can learn how to hunt for his latest piece. Sophie grew up a hunter, but she insists her skills with a bow are a bit rusty, so she invites her childhood best friend and closest confidant, Kyle (Joris Jarsky), to come up and act as Nolan’s instructor and guide. Kyle was supposed to bring his girlfriend along, but he shows up solo, and Nolan quickly picks up on some potent chemistry between the besties that might go beyond normal friendship. Tensions are high as Nolan and Kyle head out into the bush, but they have bigger, furrier problems than their barely contained animosity.
Or do they? That’s the question at the heart of Out Come the Wolves, which shows MacDonald (the bear attack film Backcountry, the witchy, but still nature indebted Pyewacket) becoming a bit of an auteur when it comes to this sort of picture. MacDonald likes to plunk characters down into situations wholly beyond their control to see how they come out on the other side. Out Come the Wolves is a slow burn to get to the bloody and intense stuff, but MacDonald – working from a script penned by his former Rookie Blue co-star Enuka Okuma – wants to build tension by first showing who these characters are, with their masks both on and off. At one point, a character states that the wilderness can show the true nature of people, and MacDonald and his cast take that sentiment to heart. MacDonald and Okuma use seclusion to coax out the true feelings of these men vying for Sophie’s affection.
Peregrym, once again heading back into the woods with MacDonald after appearing in Backcountry, makes for a capable, likeable protagonist, but the interplay between the flawed men at the heart of the story gives Out Come the Wolves most of its dramatic weight. The clashing, toxic egos of Nolan and Kyle are at opposites, but not in the ways one might expect. Writer Nolan displays a lot more alpha behaviour than the more quietly confident and physically capable Kyle does, making their dynamic something audiences might not be expecting. This flipping of personality traits and tempers helps to give Runyan and Jarsky more to work with, and has the added bonus of making MacDonald’s twists hit just a touch harder than they would’ve otherwise.
Visually, MacDonald make it clear that he respects the natural world and all within it more than he does most of his characters. As is the case with his previous films, MacDonald shows beauty and menace with equal reverence. It sounds corny to say, but the way he captures trees on film in particular suggests that MacDonald would love to know all the secrets they could tell if they could talk. When it comes time to mount the animal attack portion of the film, Out Come the Wolves does suffer a tad in the budgetary department, but it’s no less effective because the building blocks of a good story are already in place, with the cast, cinematography, editing, and score (once again delivered by Pyewacket composer and Bring Me the Horizon guitarist Lee Malia) doing most of the lifting.
MacDonald is very good at crafting simple, meaningful thrillers. There’s plenty to think about, but his films aren’t all that fussy. Here are the people. Here is their situation. Here is the problem they’re going to have to deal with. It’s basic, but smart and effective, with MacDonald always striving to approach horror from a grounded, personal perspective, without always giving into genre traditions. Out Come the Wolves firmly fits into a long history of films about the terrors of the woods, and while it isn’t the showiest, it’s certainly solid.
Out Come the Wolves opens in select theatres and on VOD on Friday, August 30, 2024. On Saturday, August 31 at Scotiabank Theatre in Toronto at 7:00 pm, there will be a special screening of the film with a cast and crew Q&A.
