!The books

* NightmareFuel: The BigBad. [[spoiler: He eats people, and his own flesh is slowly dissolving away as he morphs into...something.]]

!The film

* AlternateCharacterInterpretation: Was Bob simply an idiot to hang on to those bloody clothes or did he ''want'' the bear track them so that it would kill Charles and he wouldn't have to?
** Was Charles trying [[spoiler: to save Bob in the end or by [[LodgedBladeRemoval removing the wooden spike]] Bob was impaled with, he intentionally caused him to bleed out both for trying to kill him and for sleeping with his wife]]
* FridgeLogic: Getting the compass wrong wouldn't have made them walk in circles. Aiming for the same peak continually should have prevented that unless they somehow climbed down the same side they climbed up.
* JerkassWoobie: Bob
* NightmareFuel: '''The bear.'''
* RetroactiveRecognition: Creator/HaroldPerrineau plays Bob's assistant, [[{{Series/Lost}} and it's not the last time he plays a plane crash survivor]] [[spoiler: who encounters a bear and ends up a goner]].
* TearJerker: See BittersweetEnding. [[spoiler: Bob's death is pretty heartbreaking too - even if he tried to kill Charles, seeing him dying just before the rescue is quite painful.]]
* TheUntwist: [[spoiler: After the bear is killed, just when the viewer thinks the narrative thrust of the film has been about Charles overcoming his distrust about his wife's possible infidelity, in a very Mamet twist it turns out that -- surprise! -- Bob was sleeping with her after all.]]