Written by Kevin Scott, MoreHorror.com
It kind of a strange curiosity that sometimes films get tagged with generic titles that have horror catchphrases or words that are horror staples (i.e. blood, devil, dead).
Sometimes too, the poster art for a film does it a disservice. Put both of those typical occurrences together, and you have the makings of creating the likely possibility of looking over a pretty good film. Add the final nail to the proverbial coffin with a high profile Hollywood director that had a heyday in the style over substance action film era of the late 1980’s and 90’s, and this one may get scrolled through the Netflix selections without a second thought or glance. Such may be the unjust fate of this film Devil’s Pass directed by Renny Harlin.
I’m not anti Renny Harlin by no means, but someone who doesn’t have their horror snobbery quite in check, might remember “Cutthroat Island”. That could have been his “jump the shark” moment. Lest we forget, he did direct a “Nightmare on Elm Street” installment. Take note of the poster too. Beautiful, naked female form in an artistic pose amidst picturesque winter mountain majesty. It could be an ad for really expensive skin moisturizer. Pleasing to the eyes, but way off the rails for what this film is about. I almost passed over “Blood Creek, directed by Joel Schumacher which was a great and original film for all of the above mentioned reasons.
This film plays somewhat fast and loose, but accurate enough to be tangible with an actual event, the Dyatlov Pass incident in 1959. Nine skiers were found dead in the Ural Mountains in Russia. Tragic, but not uncommon. What really sets it apart are the circumstances under which the victims were found. They had cut open their tents from the inside, and ran barefooted out in the snow in -22 F weather. Two of the bodies had fractured skulls, and broken ribs comparable to the force of a car crash, and one was missing their tongue. None of the bodies, however had any signs of external physical trauma, and there were no indications of a struggle. There were also no footprints at the site, other than the victims themselves. Perhaps the absolute weirdest part is that one of the bodies had high levels of radiation. Through the years, there have been several speculations ranging from an avalanche, aliens, or secret government experiments. All have been plausible on most counts, but none have been able to explain it all.
Let me throw in one disclaimer, this is a found footage film. No one has to get past the hatred of shaky cam cinematography more than me. I’ve seen brilliant found footage films, but all in all, I don’t go looking for them. This one is not bad. It’s “found footage lite”. The beginnings of this film are pretty formulaic. College students get a grant to go to Russia, and a film a documentary about the incident. There’s the idyllic leader Holly (Holly Goss), Jensen (Matt Stokoe) the conspiracy theory guy, and the Jon Cryer to her Molly Ringwald (I hope everyone got that last reference.). There’s also the sound girl Denise (Gemma Atkinson) who does a Shaggy from Scooby Doo, and tells everyone that they should just leave, Man! Lastly, there’s the two survival hipster experts J.P. (Luke Albright) and Ryan (Andy Thatcher), who, of course are destined to be on the receiving end of any camp hookups. It’s not fair I know, but I’ve made peace with it.
What really sets this film apart is that it takes the best things about all the theories of what could have happened, and combines them into a primary explanation that has some amazing synergy. At the beginning, we get a nice exposition from an indigenous guy that indicates that the mountain could possibly be some anomaly where two worlds intersect. That maybe all the weirdness is a natural occurrence that never should have been discovered. The group finds a metal door that leads into the mountain, and what happens after is a crazy meddling of “The Descent”, “Stargate”, and some classic supernatural WWII experiments in teleportation. Not possible, you say? Watch and find out.