best movie i've ever seen.

Great movie! If you want to be entertained and have a few good laughs, see this movie. The music is also very good,

This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

Military veteran Ben Cross (Nathan Waring) and his girlfriend Nina (Laura Andersen) decide to hitchhike/ backpack across rural Australia, visiting small rural bars that play death metal music. There are posters of missing people in the area. "Stay off the back roads" is written on a restroom mirror.In spite of the warnings our couple decide to break up and hitchhike as Nina claims "Hitchhiking is a girl's game," so Ben takes her on her challenge. Eventually this turns into a human hunting game with a guy named Vincent (Vincent Stone) who has a French accent and camouflage make-up.This is not the best in genre. Ben is a minor league Rambo, which makes him more believable. Most of the action takes place off screen. When a person is head butted with a rifle, we never see the blow to the head. Even simple face slapping to done facing away from the camera.A film likes this appeals to people who want to see the violence, not just the results. If you decide you are not going to show the violence, then we need an "A" plan with better stars and plot.Parental Guide: F-bomb. No sex or nudity. Off screen rape?

So much necessary criticism to level, so little space.At the top of the list of things wrong with this film is that it was made in the first place: In the absence of a sensible, coherent script, there is no excuse for this film ever getting off the ground or attracting finance.Second, it was actually released: In the absence of any pride in one's work or respect for one's audience, those involved should NEVER again work in this industry.In equal third place are the oh so numerous problems within the film, which, to detail, would require touching on every single scene. Every single scene! We ain't wasting that much time here.But, to give some sort of impression of the level of 'bad' we're talking about, this is a film where a stalker/hunter gives his victim/prey a mobile phone so they can "stay in touch" (as you do), with which the idiot victim never once uses to call the police -- or anyone for that matter.And if keeping in touch via phone is not enough, the hunter tracks his victim -- not with a GPS, or radio-wave, or any sort of credible technology -- but with a… wait for it… a volt-meter.A volt-meter. A volt-meter? Yes, a volt-meter.There is NOTHING redeemable in this film. EVERYTHING is poor: script, direction, acting, dialogue, characters, story, logic and believability.There is no possible future for these film-makers -- and I use that term loosely -- nor should there be. And, being an Aussie myself, this woeful attempt at film-making does Australia a gross disservice.

Not a terrible movie but not a great one either. The Backpacker in its favour is a very good-looking movie, one of the better low-budget movies I've seen recently, with rural Australian scenery so striking and authentic in atmosphere and for low-budget it's very atmospherically lit and stylishly edited with no signs of trying to be too flashy. The photography is impressive and really makes the most of the beautiful scenery. The music score has a real spooky element to it, helped by the impressive sound quality, the movie has its heart in the right place and gives off the sense that it knows what it's trying to do and be and Vincent Stone while going overboard on occasions does strike fear in one's heart. The rest of the actors are not really to his level however, Nathan Waring did come across as wooden and never makes you believe that his character is part of the military and Laura Andersen doesn't strike much enthusiasm either. You never really get to know much about the characters let alone care properly for them, like with Ben Cross you know that he is part of the military but that's pretty much it for him, we know Malek is calculating and out for revenge but his motivations are a bit vague otherwise and it's not clear why Nina would willingly go with somebody she'd literally only just met. The story is well-intended but was too drawn-out and lopsided, the first half-hour was basically just throw-away filler and it was at that point when the movie started to get going. Albeit not ever quite with enough momentum or tension, the latter of which was dissipated by some of the action that would have made things nail-biting being off-screen. The dialogue is rather stilted and could have been structured much more tightly with parts lacking any kind of expression. Overall, looks good but not as involving as it could have been. 4/10 Bethany Cox

It's always a funny thing going to see low budget (I'm talking micro micro) films, you're never sure what you're going to get. I was in Canberra last week and my mate and I were approached by 2 sexy girls in red shirts giving out fliers for The Backpacker, a film I'd never heard of. The film's a thriller, set in the Aussie bush and I was blown away by how great the story was. Having been out of the country for a while it was refreshing to see a home grown flick made for next to nothing that satisfied both of us. The story wound out nicely and I could never tell what was going to happen next., The music blew the film along and the guy who played the psycho Malek was awesome. There's a few bits and pieces that could have been tighter but overall we came feeling like we'd be on a pretty cool ride. Good one guys.