Whoopee. Yet another movie about unlikable young adults (in this case a few nerds and a few dumb gorillas) who go into the woods to be slaughtered by a serial killer. You know it's going to be bad when the prequel involves people wearing makeup that looks like it came from a junior high school play. The slasher genre has been to the movie industry THE most overused genre in history. Not even westerns or vampire movies have consistently pumped out so many examples of crapola with only slightly different variations in theme (in this case watch the monologue during the musical Don't Go In The Woods for the plot). The only slasher movies that actually succeed are those with original stories to tell, and/or shocking and gory special effects, real SCARES (remember scares?), and good acting.
This new addition, Donner Pass, has none of it. The premise is okay except the movie takes it nowhere but to the old tired formula of young adults finding their friends dead and getting scared and panicky. In this case the acting is horrible; but not as horrible as the writing is, however; with each turn I wished that I had written it so that there would be more emotion and more realistic human interaction between the characters.
This is one of those movies where you sit through it (if you can) saying, "Oh, this is so stupid" and by the time the twist comes involving someone you already suspecting explaining why he's the actual serial killer, during the final twenty minutes ala Scream, you are already asleep.
I don't understand why movies like this keep getting made. Who pays for this crap? There must be a market, otherwise, why make them? There is a market for crack cocaine too, but Donner Pass is like a bag filled with Ivory Soap. Why do slasher films these days feature characters that we don't even like? It makes no sense. I mean, I don't care if any of these characters get killed; in fact, I wish they would get killed--they are so annoying--but when they do get killed it's not even satisfying because the lack of imagination from the special effects person can't even deliver a good death scene. So what's the point? What we get is yet another, and I repeat--another--ninety minutes of some young adults in a cabin in the woods waiting to get killed. Literally. Come on. Seriously.
Gee, I know how to save this movie, throw in a completely unexplained ripoff of REC for a few minutes at the end. NOT. Here we actually had a real opportunity with the unwanted guests and all, and it could have been a truly violent mixture of Last House On The Left and Halloween; but, instead, nothing happens out of the usual pathetic tired old dusty genre.
