Vale da Morte

The description of the film for the pitch meeting probably went something like this: a monster in an underground laboratory / bunker hunts and kills mercenaries.

We've seen this formula a million times before. There's nothing here that particularly stands out. Play this film in the background for an hour thirty minutes of generic fun while you do something else more productive.

The audio is terrible, as if whoever was in charge of sound design was their first time. Dialogue isn't great, action is okay, and the only redeemable quality is that the monster is cool. This movie is a dud. Try again next time, Psycho Goreman.

Two incompetent soldiers fight to rescue a scientist from some newly discovered creature that takes over your DNA - hmmm, where have I heard that before

The first 30 minutes are just fighing in a jungle (decent pyrotechnics btw) where the two soldiers don't bother shooting the enemy even when they find your compadre you "hid" 5 minutes earlier under some tree roots with a big opening so no one could see him

The creature (some guy in fairly good makeup) is on screen for maybe 10 minutes in total - most of the final hour is just running thru tunnels or crawling thru air ducts or fighting the bad guys

Passable but only just - you've seen it all before.

Another instantly forgettable addition to the small horror/Sci-Fi niche of "send in the military cannon fodder" movies. What is that? You might be surprised just how many low-keyed movies there exist dealing with random military men (and women) being sent into a top-secret and geographically remote government research facility or underground lab to eliminate some sort of experiment that went horribly wrong. As a matter of course, these people haven't got a clue what they will be battling against and, regardless of their intense training and superior skills, they get mercilessly ripped to pieces by something (usually an alien or a genetic experiment) much stronger and slimier than them.

"Death Valley" is a new (2021) movie, but it doesn't bring any fresh or innovative elements to the already long overdue formula. Quite the contrary, the film features the same old clichés and dire stereotypes that were already introduced in the foundational landmarks of the genre; - like "Aliens", "Predator", and "Resident Evil". The noble soldier promising to his pregnant wife this will be his last mission, the jolly & joking brother-in-arms, the buffooned Russian mercenaries as opponents, the rescued scientist holding back a few dark secrets, etc. Etc. The plot twists, turns, and becomes unnecessarily complex towards the finale, but whatever. Nobody pays attention to the plot in films like these. I liked the monster, which looked to me like the illegitimate offspring between the Chattermouth cenobite from the original "Hellraiser" and the eyeless creature from "Pan's Labyrinth". Other than that, not much special.

Ok first off, lets get this out of the way, I have seen a lot worse monster of the week movies than this, a heck of a lot worse but that is by no means a glowing endorsement.

The effects and camera work in this film are fairly decent, the monster looks cool and is actually a man in a well made suit instead of cheap, shoddy, CGI.

The acting is.....Passable, I guess.

The music is generic as hell and I couldn't help but get 'Doom' on a low budget vibes from the whole thing.

What really cheesed me off with this was the awful dialogue which feels like it was written by a young boy, some of it is downright cringe worthy.

There's also a massive over reliance on slow motion shots for pretty much any scene in the film that has the slightest bit of action, it's almost like it was directed by someone who's obsessed with cheesy 1990's straight to DVD action flicks. It's really distracting because it's so used so much. I think if you played the action scenes at normal speed, you'd end up with a 45 minute film.

The monster, although fairly impressive to look at, get way too little screen time and the build up takes far too long for it to be interesting.

All in all, a fairly generic, quite dull monster movie that does have it's moments, but despite looking well made, it still feels a bit amateurish.

A million times better than most things that the SYFY channel or the Asylum do though, so I will give it that.

Some people with lower expectations than me will probably enjoy this but it's one I won't be watching again unfortunately, although it doesn't offend me like say, 25 headed shark attack or Sharktopus vs Freddy Kruger vs Godzilla takes on the New York Yankies would :)