Movie list

Please send recommendations for the Movie List to Wildwood Survival

• The Hunted
  (released March 14, 2003) Tom Brown Jr. served as Technical Advisor for this movie.
  For lots more info on The Hunted, visit the Tracker Trail website: click here.

• Fly With the Hawk
     A Canadian movie about a disturbed teenager who is swept downstream after a canoeing accident.  He is rescued by a older man who lives in the woods primitive-survival-style.  The old man teaches the boy everything he knows, then sends him off to live on his own for the winter.  The teenager experiences a personal transformation and returns to civilization.  A wonderful surprise ending (which I won't tell you here)!
   
• Nanook of the North
  A friend lent me a video, Nanook of the North, a documentary made by Robert Flaherty, in 1922, about an Eskimo clan living in the Hudson Bay area. No Hollywood trick photography here, it's awesome if you can find a copy. I watched the hour long film, five times already. Nanook means bear, and he has earned his name, he brings eight polar bear hides to the trader as part of the year's catch, all were killed with a harpoon! The ruggedness of the land and it's people are depicted, as well as their resourcefulness. Nanook get drqgged across the ice as he struggles to hold onto a seal he has harpooned, and a group of them hold onto a sealskiin line, as a two ton walrus struggles in the surf to escape them, after it was stalked and harpooned on the beach. Butchering, dogsledding, building an igloo, spearing salmon while laying on the ice, it's all in there. A condensed version of one year of his life. My highest recommendations! (review by "Wildman")
   
• Darsu Uzala (is this the correct spelling?) - shows some survival techniques

• The Edge
  --one reviewer says, "Excellent survival scenarios, edge of your seat scenes."
  --another reviewer says, "Grade A actors in a grade "B" movie.  Very unrealistic and hard-to-believe survival scenes and some very questionable techniques, such as tossing a torch and suddenly -"poof"- there's a large protective circle of fire around the characters.  In another part of the movie they tan a bear hide in only a few hours. This movie is definitely not an "in harmony with nature" movie, with the main characters being relentlessly chased by a mean-spirited bear.

• Naked Into the Wilderness:
     John McPherson has put together a series of instructional videos with this title.   Although they move very slowly in parts, they are very detailed.  There are many close-up shots of what is being done. See Booklist-Survival on this site.

• Quest For Fire:
     Portrays a primitive society in their quest to find a source of fire.   Much of this movie was filmed on the Bruce Peninsula (Ontario, Canada).

• Survival Quest:
     "The motion picture Survival Quest tells the exciting action/adventure story of six people enrolled in a wilderness survival school. Pushed to their limits by instructor Hank Chambers (played by actor Lance Henriksen of Millennium, Aliens, etc.), his students learn to forge raging waters, forage for food, and to trust one another with their lives. Hank teaches them mountaineering and takes them on an arduous climb to a snow-covered peak where they must dig into an ice cave to survive the bitterly cold night. When they are at last ready, their instructor sends them into the forest alone without equipment or supplies, counseling them that "...survival in the wilderness is a matter of heart not hardware". The ultimate test of their newly-acquired skills however, is suddenly thrust upon them by a horrifying, violent accident that pits them against an unexpected enemy who sends them on a desperate race for salvation.
     Writer/Director Don Coscarelli (PHANTASM, BEASTMASTER) takes his talented young cast, --including Dermot Mulroney (My Best Friend's Wedding, Young Guns) and Catherine Keener (Walking and Talking, Living in Oblivion) in their first feature roles -- high into the Sierras to film this sweeping adventure that contrasts two very different philosophies of survival.
     SURVIVAL QUEST is a film that illuminates the beauty and power of the wilderness in nature as well as the wilderness in the spirit of men."  http://www.phantasm.com/sq/index.htm

• Walkabout
      An independent film made in Australia.  Basically it is about 2 British youngsters who somehow get lost in the outback of Australia, wander freely through the desert and somehow find an oasis.  At this oasis they drink all the water they need and eat the fruit off the trees.  After about three days they decide they have to leave and then all of a sudden an Aboriginie is comes over the dune chasing a lizard with a spear.  So the rest of the movie goes on about how they wander the landscape and the young warrior hunts, collects plants, medicinal plants and so forth.  In the end the two British youngsters go back to civilization but they dream aboutthe freedom they received from wandering.  An excellent movie.

• Last of the Dogmen

• My Side Of the Mountain
  About a young boy who, inspired by the writings of Walden, leaves home and goes out into the woods to live. He finds shelter in large hollowed out tree and lives from the land.

• The Earthling 
  With Rick Shroder and William Holden, where the two of them survived in the Outback.

• A Man Called Horse

• Clan of the Cave Bear
    
• White Water Summer - some skills shown
    
• Jerimiah Johnson
    
• Cast Away - A man who works for Fed Ex survives a plane crash in the South Pacific and is washed up onto an island, where he learns to survive.
    
• A Cry in the Wild
   
• Where the Lilies Bloom - Great movie, wildcrafting, and a great scene (with a young Harry Dean Stanton) about a terrific pneumonia treatment. -- Jen Kile

• Audubon Video Guides to Birds:
  There are several videos in this series, which are designed to help the viewer get to know birds.
   

• Waterwalker
  A movie by the late Bill Mason depicting the stupendous beauty and wonder of the north shore of Lake Superior.
  Also check out other movies by Bill Mason, such as Path of the Paddle and Song of the Paddle.  For more info on Bill Mason see the Mason family homepage at http://www.redcanoes.ca/bill/index.html.
   

• Into the Solitude
  Made by Robert Perkins: A man's struggle to sort issues out in his life.  He videos himself on a 60 day solo canoe trip on the Back river into the Canadian arctic.   Great movie and true, first person account (no acting).
   

• The Oasis
  A 1984 movie about people trapped in the desert and forced to eat each other to survive. Tougher than Alive because the people they wanted to eat were still alive and they killed them.