Wolf Mountain

Two brothers, their wives, and another couple go to Wolf Mountain in the desert hills north of Los Angeles to resolve a mystery from 20 years prior. Havoc ensues as corpses start mounting up. Tobin Bell and Danny Trejo are featured in small parts.

"Curse of Wolf Mountain," aka "Wolf Mountain" (2022), is basically a cabin-in-the-woods flick, except that the protagonists are camping out. The nature of the antagonist is kept ambiguous until the last act. Is it a wild man, a werewolf, or something else? The flick is essentially a modern take on 80's movies like "Don't Go in the Woods" and "Memorial Valley Massacre." It's better than the former and about on par with the latter.

Raven-haired Malu Trevejo as Emma is one of the highlights; she's just stunning, reminiscent of, say, Salma Hayek in her youth. Regrettably, she's removed from the proceedings too early. The fools.

The male protagonist is played by Keli Price, who could play Peter Parker. He also wrote the script.

The flick runs 1 hour, 35 minutes, and was shot at SilverStrand Ranch in Castaic, which is a 55-minute drive northwest of Los Angeles in the arid high country.

GRADE: B-/C+

Trying to unlock some repressed memories, a man agrees to join his girlfriend and some friends on a trip to the woods where his parents died to help it through, but when a group of thieves arrives and a strange series of deaths strikes them causes him to believe a local legend is responsible.

This was a pretty abysmal effort without much to really like about it. Most of the film's positives are based on the final half here where the film manages to introduce some liveliness and energy into what's going on. With the build-up before this featuring a series of strange disappearances and incidents surrounding both groups being taken out one by one, the full reveal of who's in the woods responsible for everything brings about some admittedly enjoyable chases and encounters in the woods that produce a couple of brutal and graphic kills that come about. With the overall approach taken here from this managing to offer up the kind of cheesy twist that this type of style is always used to do but still being quite fun for it overall, this one does have a few bright spots for it. There are some pretty big issues to be had with the film. The main drawback of the film is a wholly bland and unnecessarily dull pace that just drags the film out far longer than it really should. Despite introducing a great concept involving the repressed memories and the strange monster in his visions, very little of the film tends to evolve exploring that as the main section of the trip entails the sexual exploits of their friends or teasing each other about the situation which isn't helped by then introducing the group of thieves into the scenario for what should be merely for extra figures in the body count. Instead, none of this really devotes the kind of time it should to indulging the creature action it set itself up to be. That also manages to bring up the fact that the creature here is such a mystery that it's hard to feel truly invested or scared in what's going on. Since the conflicting storylines are given centerstage here and very little of the creature is given beyond a minor bit of lip-service about a creature in the area, there's not much of a chance here to get to know much about the creature's origins or purpose which simply makes a reveal that happens at the end seemingly contradict what's been known at the very beginning as that information doesn't really make the repressed memory angle feel like a complete cheat. On top of that, there are also plenty of issues here in its presentation that just highlight the criminally low budget this is working with. As nearly all of the night-time scenes are plainly shot day-for-night with a lame blue filter over it, not only are these scenes outright embarrassing but it also makes it way too hard to tell what's going on which makes it rather difficult to understand why they would be set at night to begin with. As well, with a lot of foreshadowing about the twist at the end based on the creatures' killing methods and tactics long before it comes to light and some direly unfunny intended comedy shoehorned into the film, there's quite a lot to dislike here that brings it down.

Rated Unrated/R: Graphic Language, Violence, and clothed sex scenes.

This film was a lot of fun! Cool slasher flick and actually very funny. The pacing was excellent and I kept wanting more. The ensamble cast did a great job and the lead couple was believe and connected well. They carried the film. The characters were very funny and well-rounded. It reminded me of some of the films I grew up watching. I highly recommend this movie if you want to be entertained with a fun slasher flick. The team did a great job on this. I heard great things about it and had to check it out. The Curse of Wolf Mountain does not disappoint. Everyone should go watch! Check it out on Appletv!

I like a funny B-movie as much as the next guy, and some are so bad that they're actually entertaining to watch.

This one wasn't.

The script is a hot mess, the excessive libido early on doesn't improve the whole thing, neither do the exaggerated stereotypes with which the black Forest Ranger or the Hispanic women were portrayed.

The plot is a hot mess, the acting mediocre, the writing ... was there any?

Basically it's mostly aimlessly wandering/fumbling/staggering about in a dimly lit park, props on the cheap (did anyone have a look at that gin trap?).

I suffered through it because I wanted to have a resolution, and then wished I had finished watching once things were clear. It was dragging on pointlessly for another 20 minutes. I can't believe that Trejo was down for this, he must have been desperate for money.

This is just bad writing. The story starts out pretty good but the middle and the end of the story is just bad.

I pretty much guessed the plot line after things start happening in the woods.

The one redeeming person in this story that does the right things in the main character's cousin! He's the smart one who doesn't go running into the bear trap infested section and actually calls the cops. You think you know the ending of the story and there's always a twist. The killer always pops up again. You get about 30 minutes from the end and think this is the worse movie I've ever seen and it has Matt Rife.