Reviews
[REVIEW] ‘Devil’s Pass’ (2013) Ruins Its Own Potential
Loosely set around a real-life incident, Devil’s Pass follows a group of college students from Oregon who trek out to the Ural Mountains hoping to find answers to one of the mysterious deaths labeled the Dyatlov Pass incident. In 1951, nine Russian hikers ventured into the wilderness of the Ural Mountains. Two weeks later, all nine were found dead. Some died of hypothermia, some died of more nefarious and questionable means. The group of students embark on filming a documentary and quickly find out they are in way over their heads. Will this group of college students make it out unscathed? Or will they fall to a similar fate as the Russians who took this trip half a century before?
When the idea of snow-themed horror films for December was pitched, one film immediately popped into my mind. It was a film I had passed multiple times over the years at Blockbuster and Family Video. The cover art was either cheesy or brilliant, I could never make my mind up. A shirtless brunette woman huddles for warmth amidst a treacherous-looking mountain range. This cover didn’t give anything away other than the word Pass in the title. After years of being aware of this film, I figured what better time to cover it than December? That film is Devil’s Pass.
The Real-Life Mystery Behind Devil’s Pass
Loosely set around a real-life incident, Devil’s Pass follows a group of college students from Oregon who trek out to the Ural Mountains hoping to find answers to one of the mysterious deaths labeled the Dyatlov Pass incident. In 1951, nine Russian hikers ventured into the wilderness of the Ural Mountains. Two weeks later, all nine were found dead. Some died of hypothermia, some died of more nefarious and questionable means. The group of students embark on filming a documentary and quickly find out they are in way over their heads. Will this group of college students make it out unscathed? Or will they fall to a similar fate as the Russians who took this trip half a century before?
Director Renny Harlin spent a lot of time researching the Dyatlov Pass incident. Harlin’s theory, which writer Vikram Weet expanded upon quite well (in theory), is that of a military experiment gone wrong and subsequent government coverup. The Dyatlov Pass incident makes the most sense when you look at it that way, though some people are adamant about something Ufological or Bigfoot-like taking place. The majority of Weet’s script does a great job of blurring the line between reality and conspiracy, but the final third of the script goes off the rails. And not in an exciting way.
When Conspiracy Meets Cinema: The Love-It-or-Hate-It Script
As someone who has spent the past few years deeply embroiled in the world of conspiracies, I can appreciate what Weet tried to do with the third act of Devil’s Pass. It’s a near-perfect example of a love-it-or-hate-it script. It seems nowhere in the process of taking this film from script to screen has anyone questioned whether they could pull it off. Simply put, without spoiling anything significant, the digital effects used to bring something to life are beyond laughable. Any authenticity for what the viewer is watching is thrown out the window. Would practical things have made the third act more believable? Maybe. But it’s an unfortunate jump-the-shark moment that stops the film’s pace in its path.
Even if the final 20-ish minutes of Devil’s Pass is, sorry to say, awful, the lead-up to that is fairly exciting. The first real head-turning moment is when the students have a shot at a bar and learn they consumed the same alcohol that the original group of explorers did the night before they embarked on their trip. In a one-two punch, there’s also a photo of the Dyatlov group (named after the group’s leader, Igor Dyatlov) in front of the same bar. The group stands out front with two dogs and mirrors a photo the documentary crew took that night with two random dogs out front of the bar. Multiple bits of information foreshadow the extreme events they’re about to face.
Found Footage Tropes That Don’t Work
The actors are about as found footage-y as it gets. Their flat and weak delivery of Weet’s dialogue is something we should be used to at this point in found footage (even in 2013). Dumb jokes, convenient framing, and unwanted sex tapes fill the runtime between worthwhile moments. Seriously, the trope of, “Don’t worry baby, the camera isn’t on,” during sex scenes is disgusting and just plain stupid. It’s beyond lazy. The only time it’s been done “well” is the Amateur Night segment in V/H/S.
Devil’s Pass has a few exciting moments and has all the right ideas. Unfortunately, Renny Harlin’s directing prowess (showcased in Cliffhanger, Deep Blue Sea, and Cutthroat Island) doesn’t compute. This film might have been more interesting in the hands of a filmmaker who had more credits in the found footage subgenre, but Harlin’s over-produced, never out-of-focus, and conveniently framed final product is nothing more than an overall mess. Found footage fans can appreciate the risks taken while enjoying the good aspects of the film, but as a whole, it’s just more fluff than [good] stuff.
A compliment first: once Evil Dead Burn’s first act ends, the film is cut loose to go wild like Sam Raimi running around with a camera strapped to his head (not a motorcycle, but thanks Bruce, it was a good piece of fake trivia while we believed it). And it’s at that turning point, when the film abandons most of the pretense of its very artificial, featherweight drama, that I started to love Evil Dead Burn. All in all, the film is a seriously entertaining endeavor in its second and third acts for how kinetic it can be.
The cold water second: Evil Dead Burn is poorly edited. But are Sébastien Vaniček and Philip Lozano’s directing and photography good enough to make up for it? Not particularly, no. But, is the story good enough to cover that up? Also no. But does it have great dialogue and humor to make up for it? Again no. But—you see where I’m going with this.
So, I’m sure you’re wondering what I actually enjoyed about this film, if it’s so flawed. And that is one simple fact: Burn is the Evil Dead franchise’s equivalent of a pro wrestling match. And Vaniček’s entry is taking you directly to a deadite royal rumble.
What Is Evil Dead Burn About?
The premise the film starts you off with would obviously never make that apparent. After her boyfriend Will is killed in a horrific car crash, Alice (Souheila Yacoub) is in shambles. Their final moments were a blow-out argument in a long string of abusive behavior on Will’s part. And to make matters worse, as she tries to reckon with that painful relationship, she is forced to attend his funeral and stay at his family’s home in the countryside. High emotions worsen tensions, as the in-laws that already ostracized her become even more aggressive.
But Will’s death was much more complicated than anyone knows: the grisly passing was set up to find the Price Family. Because Will’s brother Joseph has tampered with some very special occult items, and in the process awakened the evil dead to search for their personal effects once more. As one might expect from relentless Kandarian demons at this point, they will stop at nothing to find their possessions, even if it means tearing the family apart piece by bloody piece.
The Deadites Are Really Just Here to Put Belt to Ass
The fact of the matter is, Evil Dead Burn only really has enough structural support for its true star: the ridiculously bloody action it has on offer. This is not a ponderous horror film on the nature of trauma, despite its efforts to prod at that. It’s not a surprisingly contemplative film talking about addiction like, say, Fede Alvarez’s 2013 turn at the wheel. It is, however, the cinematic equivalent of that one RAW promo where Triple H breaks into Randy Orton’s house and just starts putting belt to ass.
The film is at its best when it’s simply letting the deadites run roughshod with their host bodies and their human prey. Tossing each other into furniture and running the fade with extreme malice, it’s borderline action horror with how much they throw down. And it looks great too, in no small part to some phenomenal practical gore and physical acting on the parts of both the main cast and their stunt performers.
The Perfect Family (of Horrific Demonic Undead)
Alyssa Sutherland’s deadite Ellie Bixler was like a slinking undead spider, crawling around and waiting to strike when her victims were at their most scared. But the Price family of Burn is more like a herd of bulls rampaging through a hospital and aiming for the patients on life support. I really can’t emphasize enough how much the stunt performers run this film, since their physicality and wild movement is perfectly in line with their fellow lead actors who get to play the deadites.
The undeniable highlight of the film is Erroll Shand. His role as the slimy grieving father Edgar is almost as good as Ellie with how absolutely nasty and demented he gets; he has the particular pleasure of working a true gross-out moment that felt like watching a Brian Yuzna film for the first time, so bravo to him if it goes to anyone. A close second for shock factor is Luciane Buchanan, who gets multiple franchise great moments as Thya. But really, the entire deadite family is fantastic once they’ve shed the weight of the film’s bag-of-rocks dialogue and get to just be sick little freaks.
(All due respect to the sick little freaks reading.)
An Examination of Abuse Deflated by Amateurish Writing and Editing
It’s doubly disappointing that Evil Dead Burn’s script is so bad in places, because the conceit of Alice’s situation is rife with potential for some really emotional scenes. Touching on the complexity of abusive relationships and how people begin to blame themselves for staying in them is inherently intriguing. It’s so perfectly in line with the way deadites psychologically torture their victims that the allegory feels wrapped like a present with a bow. And Yacoub is at the very least competent enough to work with that, she’s very engaging when she grows into full final girl form to fight back.
But the dialog is so aggressively one dimensional and unsubtle in communicating the issue at hand, it converts what could be rich drama into something cheap and flimsy. When the film tries to stoke the dramatic fires of Alice’s turmoil, it starts to feel more like a tone-deaf Lifetime movie where things are so incredibly over the top you can’t take it seriously. It’s just a tonal clash with this film’s better, more chaotic half that I can’t get behind.
If You’re Doing the Stunts, And I’m Doing The SFX, Then Who’s Editing This Movie?
This is an issue only exacerbated by the film having some seriously inappropriate timing in its editing. Most noticeable are these disorienting cuts across the entire runtime that feel like the film reel skipping. But what really gets me is the placement of these harrowing flashbacks to Alice and Will’s relationship that just don’t work. They get popped in at inopportune times to emphasize how high the stakes are emotionally for Alice. Of course, this only lowers the stakes. In isolation, the footage might have been effective (read in a doubtful tone). But in the context they’re inserted into, it evokes the feeling of someone shoving both feet on the brakes; a jarring stop in the momentum, to say the least.
Is Evil Dead Burn Worth Seeing?
So yes, Evil Dead Burn is a film that is slow to warm with its clammy writing and ice-cold editing. But once things get heated up and the film’s ensemble cast of villains are off their leash, it provides an impressive enough spectacle to keep you surprised at the wackiness and violence it achieves. And that’s saying something given the franchise’s laundry list of grotesqueries and always reliable chainsaw shenanigans. It’s hard to say if this will actually become a fan favorite with its many hiccups, but at the very least it keeps the old adage true: there’s no such thing as a boring Evil Dead film.
I’ve said time and time again that horror comedies/dark comedies aren’t my forte. Filmmakers often don’t find the right balance between horror and comedy, usually resulting in a mishmash blend that feels unfocused and lacking. Moreover, I love ambitious films; horror comedies don’t often lend themselves to ambition. (That’s not a diss by any means.) Films like Tucker & Dale vs. Evil, The Draft!, and Chainsaws Were Singing are just a few that really broke the mold for me. Thanks to the lovely programmers at Chattanooga Film Festival, I can now add Frankie, Maniac Woman to the list of exceptional horror comedies.
Frankie, Maniac Woman Delivers a Bloody Twist on Horror Comedy
Frankie Ramirez (Dina Silva) is trying to break into the industry one way or another. Little did she know that her fame would come at a bloody price. Denial after denial, being told she’s not skinny or pretty enough, when enough was enough…Frankie takes her revenge. Can Frankie slash her way to the top of the charts? Or will her path of violence become too much for her to handle?
Co-written by Dina Silva and Pierre Tsigaridis and directed by Pierre Tsigaridis, Frankie, Maniac Woman is truly a sight to behold. Pierre Tsigaridis’ third feature film takes us to a deeper level than we’ve seen before (though that might not be fair to say, as I’ve only seen his first film, Two Witches). But much of the joy from this film comes from Silva’s co-writing and performance. Oh yeah, and the gloriously violent nature of it all.
Dina Silva Creates One of Modern Slasher Horror’s Best Villains
Dina Silva’s occasionally masked portrayal of Frankie brings us one of horror’s greatest villains of all time. Rarely do we see women in horror take the main stage as such a violent force of nature. And what we also see is a devilishly smart script. Silva and Pierre Tsigaridis’ creation of Frankie brings us both a protagonist and an antagonist. Frankie wants this life where she can live as the performer she is meant to be (because Silva’s voice is gorgeous). On the other hand, Frankie’s direct actions will make sure she never has a career, you know, with the slayings and all.
The beautiful nature of Frankie’s character is the moments of realization that she has warped the trajectory of her future with each subsequent kill. She could stop, sure, but what if killing is what she was meant to do all along? Frankie does have an amazing voice, but Frankie is a fantastic serial killer. If only there were a world where she could do both.
Frankie, Maniac Woman Proves Great Slashers Need Great Stories
Now I’m unable to access the screener again, and the IMDb credits do not show the name, so I can’t fully praise the people in charge of Frankie, Maniac Woman’s SFX. A film like Frankie, Maniac Woman shows me just how wrong modern slashers are. Take Terrifier, for example. Terrifier’s story is bland, uninspired, recycled, and lazy. It’s nothing but filler around a series of fine kills. Frankie, Maniac Woman uses its kills to emphasize its incredibly well-written story. A fine film has a story that’s enough to pass the time; a great slasher has a story that uses kills as exclamation marks.
Frankie, Maniac Woman’s kills are punctuation marks that are a level above exclamation marks. Whatever that may be. Frankie is an unstoppable killing machine, until she can be stopped. She’s not this infallible entity who can take six bullets to the torso and keep lumbering on…she’s just a person. A person with feelings, stamina, and brilliant comedic timing. She’s someone you could easily see yourself being friends with (as long as you didn’t know about the killings (hell, maybe even if you knew about the killings if that’s your thing)).
Frankie, Maniac Woman Is One of the Best Festival Horror Films of the Year
Frankie, Maniac Woman is a devilishly stylized slasher that exudes camp and craft. When was the last time a film made you cry from laughter and sadness? When was the last time you watched a film so viciously riotous that you hoped things would just…work out in the end? On top of being funny, brutal, and bloody as hell, Frankie, Maniac Woman is a genuinely ‘G’reat film. It’s one of the few festival films I’ve seen that’s unquestionably Criterion-worthy.
