Devil's Pass

This is a guilty pleasure of mine. Such a fun horror movie

Love this movie

Great Movie. Love the mystery behind the theme.

Highly suggest to read a little on the bizarre tragedy that really occurred with the location this movie focuses on. It'll heighten your intrigue even though this is obviously a film of fiction. The storyline and characters are great. The story moves at a wonderful pace, no boring moments - all productive, all beneficial to the story; a balance of scary and mysterious. I've watched this film more than once and have rented it when I'm in the mood for a dependable thriller.

In a lot of ways this movie reminded me of The Objective, from a few years ago. An "X Files"-like story unfolds not in middle America but rather in an exotic location (in The Objective the location was the Middle East; here it's Russia). But like The Objective, the narrative payoff is not satisfying and feels sort of canned. I did really appreciate the effort to expand out the usual conspiracy theory mythos to encompass the mysterious Russian wilderness. It was cool to see a American film production actually take the trouble of flying a crew all the way out to the Ural region, which looks extremely distinctive here, hire some actual Russian actors where needed, and so on. The on-location cinematography was sometimes extremely striking, and the crew's excitement about being on-site bled into the movie in energizing ways. I wish the movie had lingered a bit more on these strengths: local atmosphere, wild mysterious landscapes, the sense of exploration and adventure, etc. As other reviewers have pointed out, the main actors are all extremely irritating -- though I guess that was the idea, since these are supposed to be cocky American college students. Like most people I'm sick of the "found footage" framing device, but I can accept it when it's put together with some actual wit (see for instance the amazing "Trollhunter"). Not much wit here though. The movie doesnt have any humor to offer beyond some fratboy sexual humor. *semi-spoilers below* The movie's biggest weakness, though, was the "explanation" offered for the mysterious events at Datlov Pass. The resolution is really quite a spectacularly derivative dud. Some kind of garbled time-traveling zombies nonsense. Given the exotic location, there were so many directions the makers of this movie could have gone: maybe there's a conspiracy involving the lost Russian aristocracy, the Cold War, a lost Axis encampment, etc. I was a little surprised to see the yeti mentioned so many times, but nothing about Tunguska. Conspiracy movies can be fantastical, but they're also supposed to leave you with a sense that the story was possible.

Buyer beware! I have a region free player and buy non-region A all the time. Note: I own quite a few German Blu-ray’s. On a extremely rare occasion I’ll get a bluray that just doesn’t want to play. In this case it showed all the leader titles, then when it cycled to what should/would be either a direct to play or a play screen menu it goes to black screen and never plays. I have a Sony region free player. I just ordered the European, none German bluray instead, so waiting for it to arrive to check it’s playability; twice the cost unfortunately! Not blaming either the German disc or the Sony player; just that in this case they weren’t compatible. So if you have a Sony unit and looking for this film, I’d shy away from the German bluray. I’ll make another post when I check the European bluray. Update: Got the European bluray of the movie and it worked flawlessly.

I enjoyed this movie fully and leaves you wondering what really happened.

but if you do, this was awesome. It requires a lot of willing suspension of disbelief -- the 1 & 2 star reviews you see here are probably from those who don't can't -- but the storyline helps you to do that, as any good horror story will. Everything about this movie was good. Not Exorcist good, maybe, but the writing, directing, acting & editing were still very good. If you're considering watching it, here's a test: If you like Dean Koontz novels, you'll probably like this. In fact, this reminded me very much of Dean Koontz. If you prefer Stephen King, maybe not; that's a different kind of horror. Personally, I prefer Koontz and I liked this a lot.

Loved this film! I read a book about this last year & I was fascnated by it then. The writer came to one conclusion but there are others who come up with different scenarios so it is all stll basically guess work as nobody can prove anything. I was surprised to hear it called a found footage film because the only footage was personal photographs of the hikers larkng about & having a good time, which makes the outcome of their journey all the more poignant. Apart from those photographs there was just the one that showed what looked like orbs of light which could have been anything. When I read that the film was taking 5 American students back to the scene of the disaster I thought, if this is going to be another story about 5 students going off together into the dark where they all get slashed to bts by a mad axe man I shall be really pissed off! But I am gllad to say that it wasn't anything like that as it went off on a different tack altogether. In some ways it reminds me of Cabin in the Wood because that was another film that found something really original & imaginative to say. That's where the similarties end though as they are totally diffferent films in every other respect. I was also a bit sick to find the entire film is available on Youtube for free (pause for gnashing of teeth) I was also surprised that i hadn't heard anything about this film before... but then I do practically live under a rock so maybe that's my fault :)

Das "Found Footage" Filmgenre ist seit dem Siegeszug von "Blair Witch Project" aus dem Jahr 1999 im Horrorfilm weit verbreitet, hat einige Klassiker wie "Paranormal Activity", "Rec" oder "Cloverfield" hervorgebracht. Immer wieder kommt aber das Gefühl auf, dass der Markt langsam übersättigt davon ist und es ja auch nicht ganz so logisch ist, wenn die Protagonisten noch in größter Not die Kamera mitlaufen lassen. Trotz allem kommen immer wieder interessante Genrebeiträge aus diesem Bereich heraus, im letzten Jahr war dies bei Barry Levinsons "The Bay" gegeben und interessanterweise ist Renny Harlins Variante "Devils Pass" noch um einiges besser geworden. Das wird aber auch erst mit dem Ende des Films sichtbar, denn der Gesamteindruck dieser geheimnisvollen Bergsteigergeschichte ist bessser als so manche Einzelszene, die man in den vorangegangenen 96 Minuten Spielzeit gesehen hat. Die Geschichte klingt wohl bekannt. Fünf College-Studenten machen sich auf den Weg um im fernen Russland herauszufinden, was mit den neun Menschen damals im Jahr 1959 am Dyatlov Pass im Uralgebirge passiert ist, deren Tod bis heute Rätsel aufgibt. Holly King (Holly Goss) und Jensen Day (Matt Stokoe) sind die Regisseure des Amateurfilms, der hergestellt werden soll. Dazu braucht es natürlich eine versierte Tontechnikern, die man mit Denise Evers (Gemma Atkinson) schnell gefunden hat. Auch die zwei versierten Bergsteiger J.P Hauser (Luke Albright) sowie der arrogante und überhebliche Sunnyboy Andy Thatcher (Ryan Howley) können für das interessante, aber sicherlich nicht ungefährliche Unternehmen gewonnen werden. Doch sehr schnell wird durch die Einblendung russischer Nachrichtensender klar, dass die fünfköpfige Crew auch ein ungewisses Schicksal ereilt haben könnte, denn die jungen Amerikaner sind spurlos verschwunden. Die russische Regierung soll zwar in Besitz des Videomaterials sein, dass man in den Bergen fand. Aber es soll der Öffentlichkeit nicht zugänglich gemacht werden. Hackern ist es aber gelungen, das brisante Filmmaterial zu veröffentlichen. Zuerst sieht man die Fünf, wie sie den 10. Mann der damaligen Expedition besuchen wollen. Dieser Mann war der einzige überlebende der Ereignisse von 1959, aber nur weil er gleich am ersten Tag wegen einer Krankheit das Zeltlager der Anderen verlassen musste. Obwohl die Administration des Krankenhaus behauptet, dass der Mann gestorben sein, sehen die fünf Studenten am Fenster eines Zimmers im ersten Stock einen alten Mann, der ihnen ein Schild mit einem russischen Wort zeigt. Sekunden später wird dieser Mann vom Personal von dem Fenster weggezogen. Sehr mysteriös...und so soll es auch bleiben. Sie finden Fußabdrücke im Schnee und am Pass angekommen entdecken Holly und Jensen die Tür zu einem Bunker, verdeckt vom Schnee. In der Nacht gibts eine Explosion, die eine Lawine auslöst... Dies alles ist sehr gut aufgebaut und steigert bis zum Ende den mysteriösen Touch. Ein guter Schachzug des Drehbuchs erweist sich das Rätselhafte der Geschichte, die Macher haben entschieden den Zuschauern mit einigen Fragen zurückzulassen. Nicht alles wird erklärt, lediglich in den Andeutungen lassen sich weitere spuren finden in die Geschichte mehr Licht zu lassen. Doch es bleibt ein Anteil im Dunkel und das ist auch gut so. Am Ende kommen dann auch furchterregende Wesen ins Spiel. Alles in allem ist das ein gut gemachter, kleiner Schneethriller, der bestens geeignet ist für gutes Mitternachtskino.

It was more than I expected! It was GREAT !!!

I've grown a little weary of found footage films, but I'm still a sucker for them. The only reason I took a chance on The Dyatlov Pass Incident is because the historical event has fascinated me for years. I think therefore I was doubly tough to convince of the film's merits. I'm pleased to say that final result is a reasonably engaging 90 minutes. For starters I find the characters in this genre of film tiresome in the extreme. Too often they are typically American, young, brattish, arrogant, wealthy and thoroughly dislikable from the get go. Not to mention stupid when the going gets tough. Basically they get more objectionable as the movie goes on until you rather hope they meet a sticky end. That didn't happen here. The protagonists were mostly "reasonable" college students with aspiration, a sense of fun and a thirst for adventure and knowledge. And although we didn't get to know and truly care about any of them that deeply, I didn't end up hating them either. The background to the original event was well told and a new mythos and twists were competently overlaid in a believable (sci-fi/horror) fashion, tying in other paranormal lore neatly, so it scores well there too. Likewise the ending -- all to often the final disappointment in too many horror movies -- was well realised. I've got some reservations about the quality of CGI, but ... I'm willing to let that slide. It's not so much bad effects as, to my mind, not quite "right" effects. I don't want to risk spoiling anything by revealing more. My only minor complaints are that some of the event were dropped in entirely as plot devices to create tension, and a little too much character dialogue was contrived exposition to enlighten the viewer and move the story forward. In conclusion: Amazon charged me £8 for this film and I'd say it was well worth the ride.

C'est bien film dangereux