Reviews

• 

  ★★★½ review by Dayna Newman on Letterboxd

  There's a statement made in this film by one of the main characters and to quote him "Mans the only animal that kills for fun"! This couldn't be more true especially in this film.I had never heard of "Preservation" but rented it blindly,it exceeded my expectations in every way.

  The acting was top notch and at first seemed like just another survival thriller but the deeper into the film you get the deeper and more powerful the film becomes.

  The main characters are two brothers and one brothers wife.The two brothers aren't very likeable in the beginning laughing about watching a video of a cat being flushed down a toilet and talking about spray painting a poodle as kids.For me that was instant dislike .

  The female lead played by Wrenn Schmidt as Witt was the stand out as the self professed woman who couldn't kill a thing,but what would you do if pushed to the edge? Kudos for yet another film with a strong female lead who doesn't just hide in a corner and scream!

  The three head to the woods to hunt and instead wake up the next day to find all their guns food and water gone,they also each have a large black X drawn on their foreheads.Here is where the terror begins as three masked assailants intend to hunt them like the animals the brothers came to hunt.

  The last 30 minutes or so was completely shocking and realistic,that's what makes it so powerful and relevant.There is no gore to speak of but there is blood and heavy amounts of violence.I was highly impressed.Some critics are saying it's like You're Next! I have to disagree,the only similarity is they both have strong female leads.There are some missteps but they are easily overlooked because the positive outweighs the negative.

• 

  ★★★½ review by Roman on Letterboxd

  Was den Backwood-Slasher Bereich angeht hat man in den letzten Jahren ja schon so einiges an Quark vorgesetzt bekommen… Unzählige Teens wurden von sämtlichen Inkarnationen des modernen Hinterwäldlers vergewaltig, gejagt und letztendlich möglichst blutig um die Ecke gebracht. Zu Preservation hatte ich eigentlich nur gegriffen weil er in der schönen MediaBook-Reihe von Pierrot Le Fou erschienen ist. Gott sei Dank möchte ich sagen den Preservation ist ein richtig schön dreckiger Menschenjagd-Streifen geworden. Was den Film ausmacht ist seine Bodenständigkeit! Kein SchnickSchnack, keine überzogenen Storytwists oder Gore Exzesse… Preservation kommt auf den Punkt und das ist auch gut so! Die 3 Gejagten sind recht sympathische und halbwegs glaubwürdige Charaktere und endlich mal nicht die notgeilen Teens denen man den Tod geradezu an den Hals wünscht. Die Killer bleiben lange Zeit im Hintergrund nur um dann um so rigoroser zuzuschlagen. Gut gefallen hat mich auch das ein Großteil des Filmes bei Tageslicht spielt und nicht wie sonst so oft bei tiefer Nacht. Wirklich viel Neues hat Preservation also nicht zu bieten (bis auf einen kleinen Twist), das Ganze ist aber so gut umgesetzt das die knackigen 80 Minuten wie im Flug vergehen.

• 

  ★★★½ review by Lucy on Letterboxd

  reminded me of eden lake

• 

  ★★★★ review by Andy Lunn on Letterboxd

  Lenny from Mad Men, Nick Sobotka from The Wire (or pornstache from OITNB) plus little wifey, who becomes a survivalist; in a nice little horror in which a hunting trip goes wrong, when yoofs hunt the hunters.

  You get what you expect. It's done nicely. It isn't Deliverance, but I enjoyed it.

• 

  ★★★½ review by Timothy Evans on Letterboxd

  Superior survivalist horror, packed with psychological grace notes. Wrenn Schmidt is one of my favourite Final Girls in years, wordlessly conveying shifts of desperation, resilience and vengeful bloodlust brought on by a fight-or-flight, kill-or-be-killed instinct.

• See all reviews