First, let me point out that this film is based on a real incident, when a climbing party trying to cross the the Dyatlov Pass in Russia died under rather mysterious circumstances.
Admittedly, when one considers the harsh conditions and possible effects of oxygen deprivation, perhaps not entirely mysterious. But then, the possibility of a natural solution has never been enough to discourage the spread of this sort of story.
However, a group of students make the same climb to investigate the incident and they all die or disappear.
And this is the record they left.
So, yeah, it’s a found footage film.
And that’s about what one would say about most of it. There’s a little more setup for the footage than we generally get, there are all the usual ominous developments, strange warnings, and mysterious events before we get to the climb itself.
However, after more routine perils — like an accident, strangers attacking them and an avalanche — odd and inexplicable things start happening, like reaching their destination too soon, the usual messed up compasses, and so forth. They then find a mysterious door in the rocks and the whole film suddenly veers off into the outer reaches of WTF land.
Let’s just say we have military secrets, ties to yet another incident which has its own wealth of strange speculations wrapped about it, and weird and ironic final twist which reminds me of an Indie film from 2017 and turns the entire film on its ear.
I don’t know, It has its tense moments and it is moderately interesting, reasonably well-made, and all that, but the ending and its implications are far darker than the rest of the film and so strange that it may be hard for many viewers to accept.
I’d add that it starts out slow, but you knew that: it’s a found footage film.
So I guess we can add this to the “Mostly okay” file and bring it out only if we can’t find anything better to watch.
As long as you don’t hate found footage films too much…
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