Patrons of last year’s Whistler Film Festival showed up to Backcountry expecting an undistinguished, low-budget Canadian horror film about a bear. A traumatized audience emerged 90 minutes later. To say the very least, Backcountry, opening Friday (August 28), is everything that William Girdler’s laughable 1976 drive-in cheapie Grizzly wasn’t.

“I wanted to make the shower scene of bear attacks,” said writer-director Adam MacDonald, in a call to the Straight from Toronto. “But I wanted to make it as real and as respectful as possible, because this happens to people, and it’s not a joke. I didn’t want to bombard the scene with music. I didn’t want to do anything cool. It had to be the real deal. I did a ton of research and some stories really affected me, really shook me up emotionally, for real.”

MacDonald spent “three weeks straight” editing the sequence everyone is talking about, but it’s the film’s emotional payload that really counts. Backcountry is just as merciless in its psychological attack on Alex (Jeff Roop), a city-dweller too insecure to admit that he’s out of his depth in the Ontario wilderness.

It’s a protracted, painful humiliation, with or without the unwelcome presence of Smokey the Death Machine. There’s also the weirdly aggressive and definitely more competent camp guide, for one thing. Alex’s self-esteem is under siege from the get-go.

“The idea, originally, and it still is to me, was of an extreme circumstance a woman goes through, and she finds her strength,” explained MacDonald. “He’s just a guy and some people will get his plight. He’s with a woman who’s attractive. I said, ‘Look, she loves you less than you love her, and you know that…’ So he’s trying to overcompensate.”

With a snort, MacDonald added: “Now that I think about it, it’s a comedy! How far can we emasculate this guy?”