Devil’s Pass | Review

Devil May Care: Harlin Gets on the Found Footage Train

Renny Harlin, a name synonymous with big budgeted 90s action flicks (and, debatably, the demise of Geena Davis’ mainstream career) has been steadily working on a bevy of B-grade (or worse) ventures for the past decade. So it’s no surprise to see him turn up attached to a found footage horror film, joining a legion of names in a genre that’s cheaply produced and mostly just cheap. Let it be said, however, that comparatively, Harlin’s Devil’s Pass happens to be one of the less offensive of its kind, though it falls victim to the regular shortcomings and feels lifted from some “Unsolved Mysteries” snippet.

In 1959, a group of nine Russian hikers are found dead in the Ural Mountains, an autopsy revealing that they died simultaneously, cause of death unknown. A group of five modern day college students receive a grant to make a documentary about the subject, allowing them to return to the area where the Dyatlov Pass Incident took place. Once landing there, they find a willing guide to start them off on the right path, first visiting his elderly aunt, an actual witness that discovered several bodies from the Dyatlov Pass Incident. Her account has several additional details that were never reported by the Russian press, mainly that there were two more bodies no one seemed to know anything about. Of course, not long into their trek, night time visitations begin to occur, GPS navigation runs helter skelter, and the discovery of mysterious, bare-footed tracks appear in the snow, disappearing into thin air. Soon, these five people will discover something terrifying.

It’s quite apparent that Harlin isn’t trying to do anything new with the genre, and that’s perfectly alright, but the narrative’s ascent into batshit crazy during the final stretch clearly would have been better served in a traditional genre approach. Denis Alarkon-Ramires’ cinematography is crisp and clear, his shots conveniently framed, and when paired with the tiringly rehearsed quality of the performances, the gimmick of the found footage is a dogged distraction. There usually comes a point when anyone behaving rationally would stop filming a horrific experience, and Devil’s Pass hits that early on.

As pretty as Harlin’s film manages to be, its troupe of documentarians are utterly forgettable, though it doesn’t help that their wintery grab makes one indistinguishable from the other. First time screenwriter Vikram Weet proves to be ill suited at dialogue driven interactions, and Harlin’s never seemed to mind his actors uttering asinine dribbles of nonsense. Instead, it’s clear that both are depending heavily on the major payoffs of its delirious finale, eschewing the chilling intensity of the actual details surrounding the true life incident for more sensational fodder. Russia’s a terrifying place, it seems, and at least Harlin crafted a film that manages to effectively use its locale, unlike something like 2012’s insipid Chernobyl Diaries.