Living in Canada I've seen a lot of low-budget horror flicks that were made up here (including all those Sci-Fi Channel monster movies, you're welcome) and having access to tons of them thanks to the local movie channel, I'm truly a glutton for punishment. I've suffered through dreck like Severed and Left for Dead but every once and a while, an entertaining little flick like Scarce comes along. In fact, Scarce was much better than I could've anticipated judging from the first fifteen minutes or so.

Sure, it starts off on your typical horror movie foot as a blood-caked naked man is running through the wilderness being stalked by an unknown assailant who has a collection of nasty looking weapons, but then the film decides to introduce us to our main characters who happen to be a group of snowboarders up in Colorado to enjoy some powder and partying. It's in these early moments the film gets in its skin quotient as our boarders Dustin (Thomas Webb), Owen (John Geddes), and Trevor (Jesse T. Cook) spend the night getting drunk before they set-out for the long trip back home to New Jersey.

Upon stopping somewhere in Pennsylvania at a redneck filled diner, our three travellers aren't given much of a welcoming by the locals and soon high-tail it out of there after getting directions to the interstate from one of the few civil residents. Out they go into the heavy snow and along the way they end up crashing their car as the road is blocked off by what looks like an overturned car. One of them is too hurt to leave but the other two head-off looking for help. They come across a cabin and meet the owner, Ivan (Steve Warren), who's an eccentric hunter type but seems harmless.

We, of course, know he isn't and halfway through Scarce things kick into gear when it turns out Ivan and his cohort Wade (Gary Fischer) are backwoods cannibals and want to have our snowboarders for "dinner". The rest of the film has our hapless travellers enduring various forms of torture with no real chance of escape as one of them is strung into a metal frame and has pieces of his back cut off for meat (before being bled-out in one of the flick's more disturbing moments), they have toenails and teeth pulled, and they're covered in the blood of their, now dead, friend.

This leads to a somewhat sloppy finish that ends on more of a whimper (and a "huh?") than anything but, thankfully, the ride to get there by writers-directors-co-stars John Geddes and Jesse T. Cook is an above average, and at times gruesome, ride. Going into the movie I didn't really have much to go on apart from the plot description and the fact it was "yet another" low-budget Canadian feature. Therefore, I was pleasantly surprised when things took a morbid turn - even if it was sort of expected.

Geddes and Cook know exactly what they're going for here and don't make any apologies for the depravity they toss at the screen in the last half-hour. Their script isn't perfect and did feel a little padded in the beginning and the finish, as mentioned above, doesn't work but the rest of the film is pretty successful at nailing the flesh-eating redneck sub-genre. They also make a fairly good use of their snowy locales and the direction is more competent than expected when you consider both of them have roles in front of the camera as well.

As Ivan, Warren makes a memorable baddie with his grungy, yellowed teeth and crazy hunter ethics. Fischer also shows some decent menace as his bald-headed sidekick who likes to stalk his prey wearing a creepily cool black mask (which gives the movie its best shot when the masked Wade looks into a cave for one of his victims while holding a pick-axe).

Having slogged through a lot of mediocre, to bad, Canadian-made films lately, Scarce was a surprisingly well-done effort. It starts off a little weak, and ends the same way, but what's in between supplies enough grue and degradation to please any horror fan. (Chris Hartley, 9/26/09)

Directed By: John Geddes, Jesse T. Cook.
Written By: John Geddes, Jesse T. Cook.

Starring: Steve Warren, Gary Fischer, Thomas Webb, John Geddes.