Djatlow-Pass - Tod im Schnee

First of all it's worth mentioning that it's a story based on real events, however the ending of the story is speculative, so the authors try to fit all possible versions of what happened to the group into a working narrative. The filmmakers did a twist with this show, the story is told in two parts happening simultaneously, so you have half of the episodes as a criminal investigation show and the other half as an adventure/thriller. The thriller part is presented in black and white simulating the style of the old soviet Cinema, while the investigation/crime part is coloured. The acting is decent, it reflects the era very well and there are a lot of unexpected plot twits on the way, overall not a bad show at all ...

There probably ain't a single person, at least not of my age, who wouldn't have heard about this chilling event. 60 years ago, 8 guys and 2 girls - almost all students - went on a ski hike in Ural, but none of 9 who made it to the mountain called by the locals - the Dead Mountain -never made it to the final point. They all disappeared.

Months later their bodies were found, some of them had terrible injuries. They had their eyes and tongues torn out, their ribs were smashed, skulls - fractured. Who or what killed them is still an unsolved mystery... "Dead mountain" promises us to crack the puzzle.

Almost every character of the series has a prototype - a real person from that time. Even the First Russian President Boris Yeltsin gets a cameo - or more like an Easter egg appearance in ep.2. What is more, almost at the same time with them, he could also have gone on that ill-fated expedition but fortunately they ran out of places in the group. However, there are also two fictional characters (with a very touching love story) - KGB major, Kostin and pathologist, Katya.

Kostin examines the area while Katya examins the bodies. Kostin puts forward theories, and Katya is drawing his attention to the details that could lead us to the solution of the century's biggest mystery.

I quite enjoyed the series, and I will definitely watch it over to pay more attention to some important and intriguing details. So don't miss it! Watch and try to speculate about «Dead Mountain» events.

It's so closed to the investigation materials. Actors are great here. The best movie about Dyatlov Pass Incident

Told in flashbacks, the series unfolds an intriguing narrative that poses interesting existential questions and dissects such canonized Russian subjects as WWII very boldly. It's also an effective, albeit slow-burning horror story, gorgeously filmed, intelligenty written and well acted. If you like eerie mountains, Soviet nostalgia and Nazi mysticism (stupenduous Wewelsburg castle!) , go for it.

No one knows for sure what actually happened to the trekkers but the most plausible and likely theories are the ones that are dramatised here and presented as the conclusion in the final episode.

The series cleverly uses two styles to tell its story. The hike is shot in black and white and the subsequent investigation is filmed in colour. Flashbacks and backgrounds of the characters are also shot in colour.

The back stories of the older characters mainly concern the war and are completely fictionalised to impart a sense of creepy horror to the series. The indigenous people, the Mansi, are also portrayed as shamanistic communers with nature whose superstitions mesh with the account but are not the cause of the tragedy.

There are hints and suggestions of darker political and military forces at work - this is now in the public domain - which unfortunately led to a rash of conspiracy theories. However, the conclusion reached by the initial and the subsequent investigations seems to be sound and that's the line taken by this programme.

There is enough information made public for the programme makers to have been able to reconstruct most of the hike and the investigation. The conversations are fictional, of course, and the reconstruction of the final hours has, of necessity, to be speculative.

It's a worthy series to watch. The director managed to convey the flavour of the Communist times with élan and accuracy. I didn't quite binge watch, but I had seen all eight episodes within three days. I'm glad I saw this.