Cub – TIFF Review

September 25^th, 2014:  The formula for the basic camp and carnage subgenre is simple:

1.       Establish a sense of isolationist dread by saturating the screen with an ominous thicket of woods impenetrable to light but moist in fear.

2.       Introduce an emotionally diverse yet collectively rambunctious gaggle of youth oblivious to the ills of their environment and lacking basic defences.

3.     Populate their psyche with fear numbing stories of some feral beings that once and maybe still trolling the exact woods where they’re camping.

4.     Introduce a piercing high-octane score that meshes seamlessly with wide-eyed campers who have a penchant for leaving the safety and security of their abode to creep deep into a rain soaked forest screaming randomly for a Cindy or a Kyle or a Betty or a Thad to stop fooling around because . . . god forbid . . . they have situational awareness or use basic reasoning.

The litany and mind numbing idiocy of camp and carnage films that flood North American theatres with barely an ounce of vision is deafening.  Formulaic paint-by-number narratives filled with vacuous top heavy bunnies and westcoast stoners spewing mindless drivel just waiting to be impaled is all that’s on offer.  It will take Belgium Director Jonas Govaerts and his nimble little film Cub to resuscitate this subgenre with clever bait-and-switch trickery and mercurial characters that don’t always neatly fit into the victim roll.

The prologue that opens Cub assaults your senses with a classic woodland chase scene underpinned by a heart pounding sound track of hopelessness.  All is as it should be as my eyes and ears plays out this well-worn scenario until Cub pivots at the crescendo causing me to emote, What the @#$*!?  This was my first inkling that Cub was not going to serve me some generic medium rare porter house steak dinner with a melange of over- cooked harvest vegetables but rather transport me to the adventurous House-Maison resto for pan seared skate wing, served with lemon caper buerre noisette, watercress soubise, bibb lettuce and fresh lemon.

A rag tag bunch of pre-teen cubs lead by scout masters Peter (Stef Aerts), Chris (Titus Se Voogdt) and quartermaster Yasmin (Evelien Bosmans) are readying themselves for a scouting adventure deep in the Belgium woods.  Add to the mix a creepy backstory told by the three scout masters involving the legend of “Kai”, a sneering growling feral child who lives in the woods and becomes a werewolf at night.  Typical cub shenanigans ensues and this light hearted adventures reminiscent of Stand by Me and The Goonies quickly dissolves into darker environs when concern soon grows as oddball cub Sam (Maurice Luijten) with a mysterious past starts infecting the camp with his disturbing tales.

Nothing is more fodder for cinematic bullying like an odd kid who just doesn’t fit in and this River Phoenix looking Sam has got that in spades.  Convinced he will encounter something unseemly in the woods his isolation becomes more apparent.  When he stumbles upon a make-shift aerial lair and feral child called Kai, the cry wolf paradigm becomes all consuming.  But, with no one to turn to Sam’s inner turmoil forces him into a disturbing new territory of darkness.  Prologue aside, the crux of Govaerts unfolding narrative is focused on building fully formed characters with distinct personalities. The first half of Cub simmers just below a boil until Sam and Kai finally meet. Once their connection is bonded through a piñata style beating that would have Peta calling foul, the movie rockets in momentum and intensity as the blood starts flowing.  Not to get too dour, Govaerts adds light notes of levity, the most notable being the park ranger arc.  This 400 pounder making the rounds on the smallest motor scooter on record practically writes itself.

Author: T-Mak