The Dyatlov Pass Incident

almost found footage movie with a good premise well acted and the locations are stark! all in all a good movie well worth a watch

I was very agreeably surprised by this little known 2013 UK-Russian "found-footage" horror movie. Five stars may be a little bit too generous a rating, but, for reasons described further, I simply had not other option. Below, more of my impressions, with some limited SPOILERS.1. The true 1959 tragedyThis film is a kind of investigation/continuation of a very real tragedy. In the night of 2 February 1959, in Soviet Union, nine young people (seven men and two women) died when hiking in Ural mountains. The tragedy occurred on a pass near mountain Kholat Syakl. The mountain is situated in the autonomous Khanty-Mansia region of Russia, where live Khanty and Mansi nations (two of the many national minorities of Russia). The name Kholat Syakl means in Mansi language "Death Mountain", as this is a place renowned since always for very difficult conditions in winter (very low temperature, very strong winds, powerful snow storms, very frequent avalanches). Because of the name of leader of the expedition, Igor Dyatlov, the pass was ever since known as Dyatlov Pass.The bodies were found at some distance of abandoned camp in which tents were badly damaged. Investigators determined that some of the hikers died from hypothermia but three had also critical injuries. Some of them were also partially undressed and two were found near the rests of a campfire. All of this was not unusual and in fact pointed towards an avalanche as main cause of disaster - but for some reasons, this tragedy gave birth to dozens of legends in which new "facts" were added to such a point that today it is virtually impossible to see clear in all the information fog. It was especially pretended that some bodies were irradiated, that all had a "strange colour", that there were "strange lights" seen on the pass the night of incident, etc. It actually became a kind of Soviet equivalent of "Flight 19 Mystery" - and even today hundreds of Russian conspiracy theory amateurs spend a lot of their time trying to "find the truth" about this tragedy...2. The film.In this film three American students obtain a grant to go to Russia and make a documentary about the 1959 Dyatlov Pass incident. The leader of the project is Holly King, an ambitious and clever girl. She is assisted by Jensen Day, co-director, a nerdy conspiracy theory afficionado and by her friend Denise Evers, the sound engineer on the project. In order to survive in the mountains they also recruit two of their fellow students, very experienced and quite athletic climbers, Andy Thatcher and J.P. Hauser. They go to Russia, arrive by train to Khanty Mansia and then the film begins...Made with a little budget and with completely unknown actors, this film bears a strong resemblance to "Blair Witch Project", but unlike this latter film, here there is a real ending in which quite a lot is revealed - even if NOT ALL the mystery is lifted...The main reason why I had no other choice than give to this film five stars is that the main objective of a horror film is to be scary - and this thing, for the first time in years, managed to SCARE THE PANTS OUT OF ME! I was myself surprised when somewhere around 65 minutes in the flm I actually had to pause for a moment - because the atmosphere of terror AND mystery became simply oppressive...Also, at one moment I actually started to care about what happens to those five very average people, because this film somehow makes us connect with them. Even if some of their decisions are questionnable, they mostly act as sapient human beings - and very, very rare occasional moments of panic or even hysteria can be actually understood, considering the very special circumstances.The scenario is actually quite good and it is advised to watch this film carefully because deceptively innocent things are said and done in the beginning which will have enormous importance much later.Images of the mountain are very impressive and the vision of the mystery hidden in the mountains is much, much better. Actually, in this film we are taken to an extremely creepy place - one of the creepiest and most horrible I saw in a long time on the screen...There are of course some plot holes, but not so many and the biggest of them gives us actually one of the best (and scariest) scenes in the film - so I simply cannot reduce my rating because of them.The ending is particularly strong and surprising. I advise you strongly to NOT research this film further if you want to watch it - you will enjoy it more without spoilers...This 2013 film can be actually viewed as part of an unformal cycle on the subject "young Americans go to Russia and then something bad happens"...))) The first part in this cycle would be "Darkest hour" from 2011, a film horribly bad and which bears actually NO resemblance at all to this one. The second one could be the "Chernobyl Diaries" from 2012 and in fact some aspects in this film are similar to "Dyatlov Pass incident", especially towards the end... "Chernobyl diaries" was actually a rather decent little horror but this film is definitely much better. If the trend continues, maybe in 2014 or 2015 we will have finally a real "Americans in Russia" master piece of horror...)))Now, concerning Reny Harlin, the man is certainly known for some very bad films, like "Die Hard 2" (God, what a letdown was that thing) and for one of the biggest flops ever in Hollywood ("Cuthroat Island") and lately he was making mostly turkeys flying under the radar ("Cleaner", "12 rounds"). But he also made "Cliffhanger" and "Deep Blue Sea" which are both VERY GOOD films and also "Driven", which, even if it is hated by many, I always kind of liked... And by this film, for me at least Renny Harlin atoned for many of his previous grievous sins (like "Exorcist: the beginning")...Bottom line, this is a surprisingly good little horror, which is genuinely SCARY, CREEPY and definitely NOT STUPID at all... I liked it and I will keep the DVD for another viewing in the future. ENJOY!

It's not bad as horror films go but the lack of English subtitles prevented us from fully following the plot. Sometimes in the horror genre the dialogue is fairly secondary to the action and the gore but here there seemed to be a lot going on which we didn't always follow.It is a Renny Harlin film with plenty of action, thats a bonus, and no big name stars to distract from the horror element so if you don't need subtitles this might entertain you more than it did us.96 minutes, no subtitles, no bonus features.

For those people who already know about this strange and totally engrossing true-life mystery no explanantion is needed here, but for those who do not l would reccomend a look at the many vids on Youtube to get at the 'facts' as reported at the time in the Russian and world Press and the one or two fascinating pod cast debates also on youtube exploring the mystery and the current theories as to what exactly did happen to the tragic 9 ski-hikers up there in the Ural Mountains in February 1959.Having come at this film with a well-informed, fascinated interest in the subject l was expecting to be a little let-down by this kind of film (as usual) - and this coupled to my over 50 years old loathing of teenagers in peril with sex and screaming as the bye-line,I sat down in the dark with my popcorn and partner and waited to fall asleep or chuck said pop-corn at the tv within the first 10 minutes...But no!I found myself only slightly edgy in those first 10 minutes but the film immediately offered us the reasons why this new group of younglings were headed to the 'Mountain of the Dead' and it allowed the true story to be the thrust of the film-so l settled down.Everything about the film was about the Dyatlov Incident and gave us the real 'facts' blow for blow- which was a relief.The film also allowed itself to develop certain conspiracy theories and not rule out any of them!The actors were pretty good-especially their American accents (they were mostly Young English actors!)and they served the plot well.I was not expecting to be entertained, informed AND given a great Twist at the end- which invoked a good after-film conversation with the partner - so a good evening was actually had- all in all well worth it.