Posted 10/17/2025
The 2025 film The Wilderness is a drama-thriller that offers a stark and uncompromising look at the controversial "Troubled Teen Industry," specifically focusing on a wilderness therapy program. The film is written and directed by Spencer King and stars Hunter Doohan as Ed and Lamar Johnson as Miles. Breaking Bad's Aaron Paul is attached as a producer.
The plot begins when a group of troubled teenage boys, including the lead character Ed, are forcibly kidnapped from their homes in the middle of the night (with their parents' consent) and transported deep into the unforgiving Utah desert. They are forced to attend an extreme, high-cost "wilderness therapy" program that is cut off from the outside world.
The program is run by the seemingly calm but ominous director, James (Sam Jaeger), who claims the goal is to "turn these boys into men" through brutal survival skills and forced hikes. As the teens endure physical hardship and psychological manipulation, they begin to realize that James’s true intention is not rehabilitation but rather to exploit their parents' wealth and keep the boys until they turn eighteen. The story follows Ed and his new friend Miles as they grapple with the psychological pressure and the dehumanizing practices of the camp, forcing them to choose between enduring the program's slow destruction or risking everything to find a way to escape the wilderness and expose the program's dark secrets.
Movie descriptions were generated by Google Gemini.
