User Reviews

We watched this on Netflix. Pros- no swearing/nudity/excess violence. The lead actress was very good. The film did hold our attention till the end. Cons- the other actors were pretty bad, especially the husband. The plot was pretty implausible. She survived on warm water for weeks? She never encountered the Indians again? She didn't get severe frostbite or hypothermia? Why didn't she take more clothing from the corpses she encountered? Irritating little inaccuracies abound. She wakes up with 'snowflakes' on her face. The snow would have melted. If snowflakes aren't melting on your face you are probably dead. Overall, it was an OK movie. Nothing super great or inspiring.

There is nothing redeeming about thid film. It is not a survival film because the protagonist does nothing that actually could help her survive. She avoids using the wagon or parts of the wagon as shelter, does not take coats from bodies she finds, does not understand how to make fire, find wood, and spends a lot of time burying things and toting useless items around in a heavy wooden suitcase. This woman would have died in the first :05 of the movie. Besides, the writing is so inadequate and incapable of conveying context or intentions that it is impossible to know why she is walking aimlessly in the snow. Nothing she displayed on screen indicated that she ever actually began making good choices. The film is apparently all about fhe ending, but my patience ran so thin by that time that it was lost on me. I mean, hypothermia sets in within a few hours... yet she never tried to shelter herself at night or acquire more clothing. And there's a random piano in the woods? Really? And for The Oregon Trail... there is never an actual wagon trail she follows. Are we supposed to believe that the journal she finds (with no maps) is enough to save her from herself? I was hoping we would find out that this was all the dying dream of the woman lying ten steps from the original wagon.

Okay, her husband's boots not only had laces and eyelets, but ZIPPERS. She buries him in a blanket which, if she had an iota of intelligence, she would have thought just MAYBE she'd need pretty doggone soon. THEN she takes the dead man's boots but not his hat. Okay, okay, she's just a housewife. But I've found pioneer housewives were the most intelligent, resourceful humans who ever existed. And why is everyone else freezing to death in the cold, but she has a dress on with NO PETTICOATS (I could see right through the fabric), yet she neither freezes, gets frostbite, nor starves.

This is so strangely bad, I couldn't stop watching.

In a day and age when so many movies are filled with gore, gratuitous sex, nudity, and foul language, The Trail is a clean cut and family friendly film pleasantly void of the aforementioned. Many films are centered around self gratifying plots of exploitation and revenge, but this one provides a story of faith and hope that after being tested emerges stronger on the other side.

I watched this on Netflix, and what intrigued me was the single female survivalist plot. Early on there were some disturbing things so I wasn't too sure I'd stay with it to the end until I realized it was really more about faith.

In this case, disturbing things means things that are difficult to believe to a point that they turn me off of watching. The first of these is the attack scene. It is actually a well done scene, but the problem lies in the fact that while her husband is being killed and the horses stolen she hides in the back of their small wagon. It is unbelievable that the attackers would have no interest at all in the contents of the wagon. That is exactly what we are to believe, however, as they ride away leaving her undiscovered.

Two more difficult stretches are the way she is dressed and that she consistently demonstrates a remarkable lack of resourcefulness. Since they were near their destination she decides to bury her husband and keep moving on foot with only the clothes she is wearing and a small wooden locker of essentials. She is clothed in only a thin cotton dress and a pair of flimsy looking slip on shoes. You would think she would at least take her husbands long underwear and socks and a coat, or perhaps even quickly fashion an outer covering from the blanket she buried him in, but she doesn't.

The first sign the movie is going to be about her struggle with her faith in the face of her trying circumstances is when she breaks down with her bible in hand at her husbands graveside and cries out to God, "How could you let this happen?" Later, when she is trying to decide what to take and what to leave behind, she cannot fit the bible in the locker and get the lid closed, so she removes it and starts to walk away. But after a few steps she turns back, retrieves it and makes room for it, signifying that she is not ready to abandon her faith and give up on God just yet.

Oh, I almost forgot. One other ridiculous scene is when she is walking through the snow and discovers an abandoned piano. By that point she has spent a number of days in subfreezing temperatures with no gloves, however, she precedes to sit down and play. How she was not frostbitten to the point that she could not do that is a mystery.

One interesting element to the plot is her discovery of a little native boy. Again, this takes a little effort to suspend your doubts as to why he would be out there all alone, perfectly healthy and unafraid to go with her. But I have a theory about that.

Overall the movie is interesting enough to set its difficulties aside and just go with it. In the end it is satisfying to have the tension resolved as she finally reaches the town that was her destination. However, there is some mystery created in this final scene as well. She and the boy are standing at the top of a ridge, and after briefly looking at the town below, she turns once more to say something to him only to discover he has vanished.

At first I wasn't sure what to make of that. Was he only a figure of her imagination? Or, was he an angel in disguise sent in answer to her prayer? After a little thought I decided he must have been an angel since a figure of your imagination would not see you before you saw him, eat food with you or reach out and rescue you from drowning. Also, he never once left her side until she had safely arrived at her destination.

Overall I thought this was well worth watching. Glad I stuck with it. Highly recommend it, especially if you appreciate wholesome movies with spiritual themes.

I joined IMDb to write this review. No one involved in this project has ever studied history. As another reviewer stated, all but the most pampered women in previous centuries were survivalists. Yet these inaccuracies appear in the film (that I'm finishing to see further absurdities):

No woman would have been able to dig a hole in such rocky terrain, certainly without sweating. There was cut straw where none should exist. The heavy (protective) wagon cover was left behind. The woman is missing about 6 pounds of undergarments. No woman of her status would own much less wear such useless shoes. There are zippers on boots and dresses. Shoes and boots would have worn out from the bottom because... Soles were sewn not glued during that period. There are virtually no food and other necessary supplies on the wagon. The shovel she uses didn't exist in that period. She would have been discovered in the wagon and taken into slavery. No one would have stayed in an open clearing. The forest would have been teaming with wild animals (one raccoon?!) There were no matches or flints on the wagon.

The list of historical inaccuracies is endless. I'm only 34 minutes into the movie. I'm still trying to figure out how everything dried out so quickly after the heavy rain.

Low budget period piece that's inspirational in faith. Wonderful lead actress who practically carries the film solely. She is left to survive in the wilderness alone after an unfortunate incident. There are a few problems in the narrative, props, and wardrobe, but apart from that it delivers a great message. It is mostly shot beautifully given the budget. I can't get this sentence out of my mind from it, "God isn't just in a bible or church, He is everywhere."

Smart women will opt out of viewing this exceptionally demeaning portrayal of females unable to make wise choices in a crisis situation. Director has the female lead walking endlessly, wasting precious energy, never constructing so much as a simple 'lean to' or anything reasonable to save her life after she opts to leave the trail and wander aimlessly about in the snowy woodland.

Male director shows the character in one scene in silly idleness playing a discarded piano she finds on her way or winding ribbon she discovers from a box around twos sticks to form a cross that she believes will be her salvation. Remarks the character utters are simultaneously comical and painfully sad. Character finds a man frozen by the plummeting temperatures. She borrows his boots, but leaves trousers, socks, hat and shirt behind. Character stumbles upon two or three rivers, but never beds down for more than a night, never attempts to spear fish or trap rabbits or small game, as Pioneer women would certainly have at least attempted. Story line follows character's pursuit with a Native American child in tow, wandering about the forest without clear direction. Her "strength" or resolve is to walk on under heavy snows without even a coat because of her "faith." If actual, she would have quickly succumbed to hypothermia.

Utterly humiliating to women as yet another director defames historical women portraying all as needy, imbecilic, and desperate. Pioneer women in America that moved West with their families were quite intelligent, strong, and generally instructed how to make and maintain a campfire, find food, repair wagon wheel, mend injuries, and navigate toward safe places until warm weather arrived in the Spring. Preposterous and stupid. Audience becomes frustrated with the director by mid-film hoping that he'll have the sense to at least lend her an IQ above 50 for a minute or two. Viewers gasp at how idiotic the lead female character is made to seem. At one point, rather than spark a fire by striking two pieces of partially rusty metal she comes across in her wagon, she accidentally leaves her husband's glasses on a Bible in the sun - I stress accidentally after having them in her possession for a couple of days, which sets the pages on fire. I nearly clicked off the movie at this point.

Somehow, later in the film, the character is able to start an unexplained fire with overcast skies for she and the "boy." Character often speaks down to the child, "Come boy!" as though he were a dog.

Finally, I researched this film and it seems that there is another foreign film that was made in 2003 with the same title and the essence of story line. Hopefully, the director obtained permission from the writer to borrow his material. Happy to discover that Bill Graham ministries had nothing to do with this film.