Survival Quest, the 1989 wilderness adventure thriller from cult director Don Coscarelli (Phantasm), starts out like one of those anonymous grade "B" thrillers they used to sneak in on the bottom of a double bill at the drive-in, and ends up like one of those anonymous made-for-TV movies on the Hallmark Channel. What promises to be a fairly conventional yet speedy adventure flick turns into a hackneyed Most Dangerous Game knock-off that's been done to death on the big and small screens. A good lead performance by Lance Henriksen can't compensate for the prosaic nature of the script, and the milquetoast direction by Coscarelli.

Hank Chambers (Lance Henriksen), the "Iron Man" of Survival Quest adventure company (we're told he spends ten months out of the year in the bush, alone), is in charge of leading a diverse group of civilians into the north Rockies wilderness. Joey (Paul Provenza), the "comedian" of the group and his contrary friend Jeff (Dominic Hoffman) are on board to fill in the background. Hal (Ben Hammer), a middle-aged man recently out of work, signs up to fulfill a dream he's always had. Beautiful, headstrong Olivia (Traci Lin) goes along to get away from her fiancé, only one month before her wedding. Cheryl (Catherine Keener) is a hurt, tentative divorcee who's out to prove she can stand alone, without the help of a man. And Gray (Dermot Mulroney) is the silent bad-boy convict busted for armed robbery and sentenced to a four week stint with Survival Quest as a form of shock probation.

Sharing the same charter flight that will take the Survival Quest group to their destination is the Blue Legion Survival School, led by ex-mercenary Jake Connor (Mark Rolston). A psychotic survivalist, Jake pushes his charges to their breaking point, emphasizing the dog-eat-dog nature of the wilderness, and taking particularly pleasure in humiliating Raider (Steve Antin), a gullible, easily influenced member of the group. While Hank Chambers emphasizes a harmony with nature, teaching his group that success only comes from a group effort, Jake gives impromptu lectures (which are unintentionally hilarious) on slicing off your opponents' ears, or slitting their throats. Armed with paintball guns, things quickly get out of hand when Jake's group has real guns parachuted into the woods. Soon, it becomes apparent that the Blue Legion group is going to go seriously off track, hunting the Survival Quest group due to the murderous actions of Raider.

Watching Survival Quest, it's hard to believe that it was actually made for a big screen release. The pacing is so perfunctory, and the execution of the suspense so pallid, that it really does resemble one of those anonymous cable movie productions. Nothing about Survival Quest seems imperative. The story has been produced a mind-numbing number of times before, the stock characters (the handsome rebel punk, the pretty, bored rich girl, the middle-aged man pushing himself to see if he can still cut it) offer absolutely no surprises, and the action scenes are shot at such a low energy level (and frankly, a low competency level, also), that one has to wonder how Coscarelli ever received funding for Survival Quest.

The DVD:

The Video:
Survival Quest is presented in a matted widescreen, 1.85:1 enhanced for 16x9 TVs transfer, and it looks surprisingly sharp, considering the original elements' age. The DVD box states that the transfer was taken from original vault elements, supervised by Coscarelli himself, and it obviously shows.

The Audio:
The viewer can choose either a Dolby Digital English 5.1, or a 2.0 Surround stereo mix. The 5.1 is quite strong, with some nice activity in the rear speakers, so obviously that's the one to choose. Close-captioning is available.

The Extras:
Included is an eight and a half minute featurette entitled Survival Quest: Behind-The-Scenes. There's no narration or text; it appears to be video footage shot off-camera during the production, but without any context, it's difficult to ascertain the value of it. There are also three vintage trailers included -- all of them are more exciting than the actual film.

Final Thoughts:
Survival Quest is essentially harmless genre work, but it's also fatally dull and pedestrian. There are any number of similar TV and feature films that use the basics of this story to better effect, so there's no real reason to boot up for Survival Quest. Skip it.