Shudder Day: Devil's Pass (2013)

 A Film by Renny Harlin- I'm intrigued.
A Film that is sadly his most successful one in around 20 years?  Yikes.

Oh, and it is Found Footage.
Crap.

This is...

FYI- This lady is not in the Movie.

In 1959, a group of people went missing while crossing through some Russian Mountains.

Specifically, they were all found dead in the snow at Devil's Pass.

I hope that this is a reenactment picture...because this first part is actually true!

This Film figures that you've already seen far too many Found Footage Films (guilty!) and just immediately tells us that the group of young people who go on the same route in 2013 were lost.

Yadda yadda their footage was found.

This time, it is a group that is clearly supposed to be Wikileaks that leaks their 'footage' after the Russian Government wouldn't release it.

So now that there is ZERO question that something terrible happens to all of them (we see this clip of 2 of them huddled together right away), let's follow the group while they are still all alive.

They are Oregon College Students who decide to investigate the Dyatlov Pass Incident and can apparently just get a grant to fly over and film this.

The group includes the lead girl Holly, her Cameraman/Conspiracy Theorist Jensen, a strong Sound Girl (Brit Star Gemma Atkinson) and two prolific Hikers that just also happen to go to the same School.

It makes me wonder how many people that lived on or around Mt. Everest for a year were at my College!

Off to Russia!

They see weird things as they get closer, like strange footprints that appear in the snow around their camp.

There's also a damaged Relay Tower that is hiding a man's tongue inside!

They finally get to the titular Pass and film some footage talking about the incident, with the bodies' locations marked out.

So how do they end up trapped in a dark chamber?

Well, it all gets a bit silly and strange, so I'll just let you find out for yourself.

The End.

A Film that is really best diagrammed as two fairly different halves.

The first part is pretty standard stuff.
They cast mostly unknowns here and the Dialog is decent.

I've seen User Reviews say that they are unlikable, but I was mostly okay with them.  Sometimes natural dialog is like that.

That brings us to the 2nd half.

In a way, this is the best and worst part of the Film.

On one hand, it builds up from the little hints throughout the Film the incident and the related characters.

On the other hand, the explanation is bonkers!  It sort of ties together if you don't think about some key details (like the battery life of a camcorder).

The problem is mostly that the big payoff of seeing the creatures that they have been teasing for an hour is pretty lame.  They are pretty silly looking and obviously CGI.

If you Google this Film, you'll see people in freaky make-up as creatures...and none of that is here.
Was it replaced with CGI like the 2011 Thing prequel?  Maybe.

The Film's big hook is either really clever or super-dumb.  I'll let you decide.

A Film that delivered the weird and bizarre.  The question is whether or not you find it interesting...or just plain stupid.