Donner Pass

If you've spent enough time watching the indie horrors that appear so frequently on Netflix instant, you'll know by now that only about one in three of them is watchable. Not good, just watchable. Donner Pass is one of the watchable ones.

It's basically a tame slasher movie with a spin on the Wendigo myth thrown in (but don't expect something as good as "Ravenous"). It's elevated above the usual crowd by decent acting and direction, a restrained pace, and an interesting rape/revenge subplot. One thing I very much liked was that when the bad stuff did start going down, the characters made some pretty logical decisions (such as attempting to dig a car out of snow while the others stand guard post with weapons at all four corners). It's always a welcome relief when you don't have to shout "as if you would do that!" at the screen.

Unfortunately, like with so many films of this ilk, the character writing is where it fails. Yet again we're introduced to a group of bickering twentysomethings that I have a seriously hard time believing would ever come together as acquaintances let alone friends. Each character never gets past the standard slasher stereotype - the bitch, the jock, the bad boy, the nerd, and the blank canvas final girl. And worse, most of the characters are so horrible that you never get invested in their wellbeing, which makes every death scene at best empty and meaningless and at worst, a relief.

For any would-be indie horror film maker reading this, I implore you to take this simple formula to heart: "Make a character *we can like* and then put them in danger".

It really shouldn't be hard but almost once a month I see a film where crappy characters are the principle flaw in an otherwise solid horror movie. If only we lived in a world where the first thing they taught at screen writing school was "how to make the audience give a damn".

Rant over, back to the movie: Donner Pass is well made enough that, if you can get past the characters, it is worth watching. The subtle supernatural slant seems to rub a few viewers the wrong way but I actually enjoyed it more because of it (mundane slasher flicks bore me). I give it props for some intelligent plot decisions and for having a bit more of a grown-up feel than many tween-targeted slashers. It's not great, but it's worth watching. 5/10.

Another "what if the legend is true" movie. This is about the story of Donner Pass, and how a family was abandoned in the forest. This leads to dinner time for crazy George Donor (Eric Pierpoint). So now we know this is a movie about cannibalism. Fast forward about 150 years (they may have said exactly, but was already bored) and 4 kids are going to stay at their parents cabin for the weekend in Donnors Pass. So now the stage is set to find out if the legend is true.Of course the obligatory "extra friends" show up to crash the party (which is good, we needed more people to kill). Well, the obvious occurs and the group is picked off one by one. Not particularly extremely gory or really well written either. There is one kill that is absolutely asinine it is almost worth watching just for it. Well the characters aren't worth wasting time commenting about, they are all poorly played and given nothing really to work with, so blame whomever you like (The chick that played the stuck up bitch was spot on for the girl all you women hated in high school). The scenery was very nice (I am a sucker for snow covered mountains, too bad they didn't utilize this more) and is filmed quite nicely for the budget I am sure this had. If by now you haven't figured it out, the movie is not very good at all. No scares, very little story until the writers must've all of a sudden had an epiphany and decided to pull the story together(should they be vampires, or zombies, or just cannibals). IF you have nothing else to watch and you DON'T have to pay for it, then I guess it is up to you. But make sure you meet those guidelines. Also if you really have a need to watch a movie about cannibals and would like to see how they can be made well, watch "Ravenous", you will definitely be happy you did. Anyway, I will stop degrading this movie as the worst ever, it really isn't, it just has so many flaws that it makes it tough to swallow (kind of like human flesh, not that I would know ;) 3.6/10 IMDb 4.6 (many cast members must be voting)

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.

Donner Pass has a well-known and macabre history -- the place where George Donner and his party got stuck in the winter of 1846 and were forced to resort to cannibalism to keep from starving. But what if it was not just history?

This is your standard young people alone in a secluded area type of horror film. There is some attempt to connect it to the legendary Donner Party, but it is done in such a way as to seem gratuitous and really outside the overall tone and thrust of he film.

If someone were to make a film inspired by the story or actually set at the time, I think it could work well. "Ravenous" was a great film, for example. This one, though, is nothing special.

It's not a bad movie, really, has some pretty good ideas, yet, somehow, something just doesn't work out too good.

So, you could call it your average "group of friends go to a cabin in the woods and get murdered" story but it would be kinda ignorant cause the movie is a little more than this. The plot brings some new elements or maybe just ones that aren't used as often as others, so, you might like what you see, even be surprised for a change! The death-scenes on the other hand, quite disappointing, i expected a little more, guess they decided not to stick so much on gore/murders/execution but on plot. Usually i would call this a breathe of fresh air although i would be lying cause in a horror like this, i want to see nice kill-shoots. Overall, the action is OK, one could predict it earlier in the movie or might just go with it to the end and discover then what the action is all about.

Characters are OK also, annoying but guess that is how they were suppose to be, dialogue, a little poor, could have used some humor and last but not least a little nudity as always.

So, don't know exactly if to recommend this one or not, as i said, it is NOT a bad movie, don't know if i can call it a GOOD one, guess ultimately it will come down to everyone's personal opinion. Some of you will be entertained and some of you won't. I just expected more of it, had a lot of potential but it limited itself to far less...