Hell Mountain

As a fan of horror that consumes a lot of indie efforts, finding something original and engaging is admittedly rare. This film is both. Sadly, that's about all I can tell you because I refuse to spoil this for anyone who will give it a shot. It has its issues - time away from a film set has had a definite negative impact on Taylor Dooley and some of the other acting in smaller roles is choppy - but overall this is a strong effort by a filmmaker with talent.

If you're considering this movie, chances are you're like I was and scrolling through Amazon Video looking for something that isn't awful. When I decided to watch it, there was only one review (albeit positive), so I was a little skeptical. To my delight, this was one of the better horror movies I found on any of the streaming services in a while. One thing I found to be a breath of fresh air was the pacing of the movie, at no point was I bored. In most movies where there is a description something like "group goes to investigate house/hospital/asylum/etc", said group goes to the house, and that's where you spend the next 90 minutes. This was different. Roaming and exploring the "haunted" house, was only a small part of the movie, it then kept moving along with the story. There was a point where I thought it was going to take a turn to being ridiculous or corny, but it smooths out, and yes there are some factual inconsistencies you need to overlook, but it's a movie. The biggest problem I have with most indie movies is low quality audio or video, sometimes that makes them unwatchable for me. Fortunately, neither of these are issues, and neither is awful acting. So if you're like me, and scrolling through your recommended movies trying to decide which will suck the least, go ahead and give Hell Mountain a shot, it's definitely one of the better options on the streaming platforms.

Chronically ill Kara sends her friends off to investigate a house featured in urban legends. Not quite supernatural horror, not quite psychological, not really a slasher, not particularly found footage-- but elements of all of that. Low budget, on the amateur side of things.

And tough to review. Because while there are a lot of things that Hell Mountain does pretty poorly, there's one thing that it does right: Pomeroy knows how to tell a story. And of course, that's the most important thing. Despite all of its issues, Hell Mountain can be pretty engaging.

But only most of the time. Not always. There are some parts where the story-telling falls flat (that childhood-history info-dump was as awkward a technique as I've recently seen.) The pacing is sometimes off, the film a little padded. And the ending isn't nearly as good as the trip to it.

More, in almost every other aspect of its film-making, Hell Mountain isn't good. The camera work and editing is shoddy, with lighting issues and cuts that were obviously filmed at separate times. Every role is a little over-acted, as if the actors were used to theater-- reminds me a little bit of old Hal Hartley stuff, which isn't a good thing. Soundtrack is often distractingly out of place. (At least the sound itself is handled decently throughout.)

HM would be a high quality film compared to amateur efforts, but when compared to professional efforts, the problems are too large to overlook. There is something worth watching here, and I'm interested in further work. But there's also a lot of better stuff you could be watching instead.

I've been on a bender of indie horror, which means of course that I've been watching a lot of terrible movies hoping for those few gems.

Didn't expect to find one here. I actually was in a bit of a mood when I hit play, expecting to see more garbage. Instead I was sucked in to an actual plot. A story. Not even just a simple straightforward story, but a story with some nice complexities. While the acting wasn't always stellar, there were a few standouts, and the dialogue was surprisingly well written (the friends repartee was great comic relief).

The film went into some unexpected directions, people weren't who I thought they might be, and there wasn't a single half-naked college girl poking nipples threateningly at the camera. Winner!

If you decide to watch, keep your expectations at a very low-budget indie level, and you might find yourself, as I was, pleasantly surprised. I hope whoever wrote this keeps writing. I'll be watching for more of their work.

While watching this film, it lost me at a certain point, can't remember which point, but it did. Just a few moments later, it pulled me back in. I started appreciating it. When it concluded, I came here, to IMDB, because "Hell Mountain" left me in a kind of, 'WTF did I just watch?' mindset, compelling me to do some research on it.

"It's all fun and games until the blood-letting begins." I said to friends something very similar to this during a summer holiday in Cornwell: "Everything was going great until the blood-letting." Maybe that biased me toward liking this film from the start, despite its meanderings...or were they? I'm not a cat lover, either, which was good going in. I need to watch this one again.