Watching this alone in the cinema, I was up for a surprise. Done by a very small production crew with a small budget and some crowd financing, this movie trumps with a lean but still intelligent story, believable dialogue, some good acting and a beautiful setting.
The story never tries to be more than it can be with the limited resources at hand. It's a straight forward thriller with some minor twists and enough room for believable characterisation and character development. The pacing is great and keeps you hooked with a mix of suspense, mystery and some red herrings. There are a few hick-ups where the motivation for the actions of the characters seem to take a little leap forward and therefore seems a little rushed, but it's nothing major and you forget about it in a few seconds.
The English dialogue is down to earth and surprisingly convincing except for a few lines that are central to the plot and can come of as a bit heavy handed. My guess is that it profited a lot from the natural back and forth between the two English leads that did an overall great job with the fact that they get so much exposure for being on screen/close-up in almost every scene.
The movie is set in a mountain forest somewhere in North America (shot on location in Switzerland). The natural setting is great and nicely put in scene by the director. I'm especially impressed by the way he handled the many night scenes without artificial lighting and without using the green/night camera effect so many low budgets movies use for these kind of shots. Overall did the director a good job in not falling into the trap of making the movie some shaky-cam, pseudo-documentary, blair-witch look-a-like, while it would have been suggested by the script and the limited budget. I regard it as a great feat to go for a more classical approach without making the limited budget obvious to the viewer.
Some flaws that need to get mentioned: The make-up (especially on Michael) was irritatingly not well suited for a movie. He looked like being prepared for the next photo shoot all the time while being supposed to be in the woods for days. Another point that bothered me was that the director of photography plays a lot with the focus of the camera and keeps some important parts deliberately blurry. This is fine in some scenes but too much and irritating in others.
Overall the movie is really worth while your time. Not a masterpiece, but a well done and nicely crafted piece of cinema.
