Backtrack Review

Backtrack is an interesting psychological movie that follows a psychologist named Peter Bower (Adrien Brody) dealing with the loss of his daughter and a recurrence of his past. While I don't want to dive too far into details as far as spoilers I do need to discuss some starting aspects in order to develop around the story.

In dealing with the death of his daughter that was due to some negligence on his part he begins meeting with Duncan Stewart (Sam Neill) which is a fellow professor that's helping him cope. Duncan has also referred a number of patients to Peter recently which all of a string of issues with some horrific elements quickly developing.

This leads to the eventual conclusion that each of the patients that he's been meeting with are actual ghosts and furthermore connected to a dark part of his past. The hauntings of these ghosts only continue to get worse eventually leading Peter to head back to his home town in order to put the pieces together to figure out why these spirits are focused on him.

Being focused towards somewhat of a mystery with some horror elements the movie never carried too deep of a scare vibe though it did a solid job of creating some well done jump scares. I'm not normally hit by those moments, but they were fit well into the film and came up at good moments. I did also have a bit of an issue with ghosts pushing the plot and providing most the exposition along the way as it felt too forced for the main character to follow.

I did like the general narrative as I went into the movie without reading any information on it or the ghost elements and that was certainly surprising. They even did a great job of hiding certain elements of the story where it kept me guessing of what the overall focus of where the story was going which was great.

The performances were alright as there were a limited selection of characters present with the constable played by (Robin McLeavy) doing a wonderful job in the role whereas I felt Adrien Brody didn't quite put himself fully into it at certain emotional moments with a hit or miss in that regard. There were also some poorly done CGI sections which took away from key portions and those could have been improved since it didn't feel like there were many CGI elements even present. Despite those portions I still like the general narrative and how it unraveled over the course of the movie with the pieces fitting nicely together.

The Conclusion

When reviewing this film I hadn't viewed in theaters and instead received a Blu Ray copy of the film so I'm now going to cover aspects of what's included in this version. The case looks nice with a dark theme to it which gives a good look at the film without giving away any essential aspects as I read through the description afterwards since I wanted to watch the movie with no information.

The disc also includes some deleted scenes with some that didn't add anything to the story really though I did feel that the first meeting between the Peter and the constable might have been a good portion to add since it helped build the first moments between as in the film it just cuts to it which is odd. Aside from that there's also a Director's Commentary, Interview with the Cast and some Behind the Scenes clips to watch.

Backtrack is definitely a good title for the film as that's the focus of where the story goes and I enjoyed the film. It's a good psychological title that has some chilling moments without pushing itself fully into the horror direction. I was impressed with the jump scares and the eventual conclusion of the story as it gave away some things while never displaying the true focus until the end.

Backtrack Review at Home with Blu Ray Viewing
Review Copy Provided by VVS Films

Rating Overall: 7.2