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.
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.
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.
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.