The HD DVD format still has a few surprises up its metaphorical sleeves, as a rare title goes for a bundle in an online auction...

A slight change for today’s Disc Of The Day – we’ve picked out a DVD that actually looks half-decent.

Gary Oldman and Paddy Considine in the same film? The Backwoods already sounds like our cup of super-strong, British builders’ tea – albeit stirred with a Spanish spoon (that'd be director Koldo Serra).

The Blurb:

There are hunters and prey…that’s the only truth in this world.

It’s summer 1978:  Norman (Paddy Considine) and Lucy (Virginia Ledoyen) are an English couple who are going through a difficult patch in their relationship, and so decide to spend the summer with their friend Paul (Gary Oldman) in the north of Spain. 

Very much off the beaten track, their friend’s house seems ideal for a peaceful holiday. 

But their tranquil summer turns to horror when they discover a girl with horribly deformed hands locked away in a cabin in the woods.  Filthy and unable to talk, the girl is obviously terrified and so the couple decide to take her to the police.

A group of local villagers however have other ideas and refuse to let the girl go, pursing the holidaymakers through the forest and taking them into a whirlpool of violence.

We say:

The fact that it’s an ‘atmospheric, psychological’ revenge thriller in the ’70s Straw Dogs/Get Carter vein with a sleeve on which a moustache-sporting Oldman and Considine clutch double-barrel shotguns and we’re practically chomping at the bit to see it.

Only the fact that Serra’s flick didn’t exactly make a splash at theatrical level makes us a touch wary that it may not actually be the new Dead Man’s Shoes.

The Backwoods is released on DVD on 19 May by Momentum Pictures. Look out for our review in a future issue of DVD Review.