What do we have here? A low budget sci fi channel film that doesn’t completely suck eggs? That sure is rare!
There isn’t too much to say about this one, so I’ll make this short. It’s a typical mountain expedition movie, but they decided to throw monsters in there. And that’s what it feels like. They were just thrown in so they could say “there’s monsters in it”.
The acting is surprisingly good for this kind of movie. The actors don’t overdo it or underperform, they fall into that happy balance that passes for believable. The characters aren’t exactly memorable, but it’s better than having them be annoying. The story is okay, the atmosphere is setup nicely, and overall, the movie is pretty good…. until you get to one thing: the monsters.
They look like they belong in some other movie. Their design doesn’t look that well done to me. What’s even worse is that the CGI sucks. I’ve seen Asylum movies with better animation, and that’s saying something. It’s not that the models look unfinished, it’s that the framerate of the animation is extremely choppy, kinda like some of the jittery stop motion animation from older sci fi movies. It’s another one of those instances that makes me think puppets and stop motion effects would actually be much better. At least it would look more appealing. On the plus side, all the explosions are real, so that’s cool.
It could have been a lot better if they excluded the monsters entirely, and just stuck to the mystery of the mountain, or make it so a curse is what keeps screwing things up for the characters. That would’ve been a lot more effective. But as it stands, it’s still alright. Got an hour and 20 minutes to spare? This one won’t waste your time too much. The Syfy channel has it in them to make good films, and this is proof. They just need a little help in the special effects/monster department.
FINAL RATING: 23 / 50
STORY: 2 / 5
ACTING: 3 / 5
CHARACTERS: 3 / 5
CGI/EFFECTS: 1 / 5
HORROR/ADVENTURE: 3 / 5
SOUNDTRACK: 3 / 5
TONE: 4 / 5
ENJOYABILITY: 3 / 5
REWATCH VALUE: 1 / 5
OWNING VALUE: 0 / 5
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