How entertaining? ★★☆☆☆
Thought provoking? ★☆☆☆☆ 5 August 2013
This article is a review of THE DYATLOV PASS INCIDENT.
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“You followed a step by step plan that killed people; what do you think was going to happen?” JP Hauser Jr. (Luke Albright)
One keeps holding out that director Renny Harlin will recapture his DEEP BLUE SEA/CLIFFHANGER/DIE HARD 2 form. It saddens me to report that THE DYATLOV PASS INCIDENT is not that film. Like Barry Levinson’s THE BAY and Brian De Palma’s REDACTED, Harlin seems to be attempting to inject some mojo back into his filmmaking, reinvigorating the creative impulse, by going to the found footage subgenre. Unfortunately, he also joins his peers’ lacklustre attempts. Harlin chucks every found footage cliché onto the screen. Did he think we wouldn’t notice?
One keeps holding out that director Renny Harlin will recapture his DEEP BLUE SEA/CLIFFHANGER/DIE HARD 2 form. It saddens me to report that THE DYATLOV PASS INCIDENT is not that film. Like Barry Levinson’s THE BAY and Brian De Palma’s REDACTED, Harlin seems to be attempting to inject some mojo back into his filmmaking, reinvigorating the creative impulse, by going to the found footage subgenre. Unfortunately, he also joins his peers’ lacklustre attempts. Harlin chucks every found footage cliché onto the screen. Did he think we wouldn’t notice?
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Going all BLAIR WITCH PROJECT, a psychology student Holly (Holly Goss) and a film student Jenson Day (Matt Stokoe) team up to investigate the Dyatlov Pass tragedy, where nine people died on a Russian mountain in mysterious circumstances in 1959. They enlist the help of fellow college denizens who are mountain climbing experts: Andy Thatcher (Ryan Hawley) and JP Hauser Jr. (Luke Albright); and sound engineer Denise Evers (Gemma Atkinson). These 21/22 year olds cross continents to the formidable Northern Ural Mountains. Oh yeah, before those introductions, we are given the so-tired-its-threadbare framing device: Camera footage has been found of five missing Oregon students. Can you stifle a groan? (Your tolerance of an overworked tool may allow the set-up to wash over you.)
The audience is given a tour of conspiracy theories as to possible reasons for the deaths in 1959, from government cover up and the yeti, to aliens and spirits. Kudos to the strategy for keeping us guessing. A shame then when the horror is tied to wafer thin characters and awful dialogue, such as Holly’s psychology professor saying clunky platitudes like “There is no truth.” If the five protagonists are varying degrees of bland/annoying, that reduces the fear, as they become cannon fodder rather than people whose shoes we walk in.
The inhospitability of the terrain and the odd bods the five meet along the way encourage a mixture of mild trepidation and hilarity. Direction devoid of inventiveness or zest, contrast the two Cs: CLOVERFIELD or CHRONICLE, leaves just the efficient scares in the last twenty minutes. The reveal shields THE DYATLOV PASS INCIDENT from falling down into the abyss of ignominy. Why didn’t the filmmakers apply the same approach to character interaction, and elevate this beyond the generic?