Annoying director

I see the director was quoted (on collider.com) as "I fictionalized the story too because it’s not a documentary. [Laughs] I love it when people come up, we’ve had a couple of screenings, and they go, ‘Did that really happen to a couple in the backcountry"

In filmmaking, it doesn't get any lower than that. If you're going to claim to use someone's true story, then yeah, it actually does need to be the truth, to the best of your ability to show it.

You know what you do if you want to make a fictional story? You write a fictional story. And you don't pretend that it's tied to real people, as an artificial way to inflate your audience.

In this case, the story was changed to turn a Star of Courage honouree into a loser and a victim. That "huge spark from [the director's] creativity in the piece" came right out of his ass. That's where it should return.

(EDIT: "To be honest, I think it would be such a disservice if someone saw the movie and went, ‘That’s not how it happens at all. It happened to me and that’s bullsh*t.’" Indeed.)