Hillwalkers (2022)

A couple plans a 14 kilometer hike with some friends. But it goes sideways when one guy with a selfie stick isn’t paying attention and falls off a small cliff.  It’s probably a ten to fifteen foot drop and he lands on grass. The bad news is he’s injured and needs medical attention.

The leg injury makes the going slow so they decide to ditch the trail and go as the crow flies to get back to the car. When they get to the edge of the woods, they see signs signaling it’s private property and no trespassing.  The wife of the injured man waves off concerns and shows her lack of cranial functioning when she says it wouldn’t apply in an emergency. 

Elise disagrees and makes them promise to wait at the woods while she walks back to the car to call for help. As soon as she’s gone, the wife rousts everyone up and into the woods. When one of the group mentions the signs, the wife says no one’s there so it’s fine.  She doesn’t recognize no one is there because the posted signs and fence should be enough to keep people from entering.

As they make their way through the woods, they smell something awful and see a dead cow in a barrel. Instead of being alarmed at the possibility the private property notice was something they shouldn’t have ignored,  one girl takes pictures so she can turn them in.  These people have no sense of self preservation. And you just know they’re going to run into someone or something in those woods, and it’s not going to go well. 

One odd moment is as they started the hike, one of them had binoculars and saw a man holding a rifle and wearing a skull mask. That’s super creep to see anywhere, but especially when hiking in an isolated area.  Best case scenario is an illegal hunt, while worst case is a murderer.  Either way, there’s danger. Yet she tells no one about him. They should need this info to decide whether it’s safe to continue or go back to the car.

Dialogue from someone who thinks the world revolves around them:

“In case of emergency, I don’t think that applies, does it.”

Elise, I negotiate multimillion dollar deals for a living.  My husband has a piece of fucking tree in his leg. I think if we meet some yokels, I’ll be able to explain the unique circumstances.”

Did they just park in the road?

Nothing could possibly go wrong

I’m sure this doesn’t apply to us