Deadfall Trail

Movie didn't explain very well why three people would go out into the woods with minimal things and the two people didn't even know each other that well the one guy was crazy the other one was a young kid and the other two were friends. The story is hard to follow and a little weird things happening like the guy hallucinating in a bloodbath having sex with somebody and then at the end he's later nude you don't know if it's a dream or not and they did mention peyote a couple times hard to really understand what's going on but the facts are we know that the one guy gets hurt because of a trap that was set off unintentionally by the novice kid and it really didn't explain why the people kept chasing each other at the end the two living people the one wanted to get away and the other guy kept trapping him and putting him to sleep and tying him up. The only thing I learned on this movie is how humans think how they react when the chips are down it really shows the vulnerability of humans and how we react to adversity however the movie could have been much better at the explained what was going on much better.

It's a shame when people undertake the effort to make a feature film when they simply do not have the requisite tools to even superficially command the craft. The filmmaker(s) should have spent more time doing another short film or two in order to better prepare (or better yet) learn the craft of story design and character development. The movie is reasonably well shot, but this is the extent of what I'm willing to give this movie. Good work by DP.

The movie drags and drags. The characters are not well drawn – very little debt. All we get is three guys that go into the forest on a self-imposed mission to test themselves with very little water and a bag of peyote. The reason for this is not very well justified. We're left to assume that it's a contrived "guys" thing – not good enough as far as a premise goes. We're not given a whole lot of insight into Julian's character aside from the fact that he's got some sort of unresolved internal issues – none of this is well mapped. He and Paul are drawn up as having issues with on another, but again nothing is really fleshed out in any discernible dramatic sense. Their relationship is flat and one-note.

As mentioned earlier, nothing really happens with these guys. The structure is week and no discernible dramatic tension is created that is able to sustain a feature length telling of the story (or lack thereof). The movie simply wallows along as we follow these week characters through the forest.

I really long for the days when people stop pretending to be filmmakers just because they have the financial means to do so. Of course, we can't really define well made movies without having our fair share of bad or mediocre movies like this one. The filmmakers of Deadfall Trail will do well to be honest with themselves and learn to appreciate the art of story craft – maybe consult those that do have experience instead of assuming that they already have the tools. Learn how to write stories that resonate with the audience and populate your story with compelling characters that have some emotional debt and complexity and are able to pull the audience along. Reach out for serious notes from experienced story tellers if you need to. And don't fall into the fatal trap of only taking notes that praise or validate you. Learn how to work with honest notes, even if it hurts. From what I understand, the filmmakers are instructors at a two year film program in Scottsdale, Arizona? My hopes are that this does not cloud their ability to take notes from others. It's very easy for people like this to feel like they have all the answers when surrounded by eager students that look up to them.

I have to agree with the other, few, reviewers here....why this film has barely a "4" rating is beyond me. It's about twice that good. Not only is it an interesting story, the characters are well-drawn and complex, the action is very well staged and performed, and even the special effects are creepy and effective.

Julian and John (Shane Dean and Slade Hall) are well-worn survivalists. Their idea of a kick-ass weekend is to walk for a few days into Arizona desert with nothing but a couple bottles of water. Julian seems to have taken these treks a bit more seriously over the years, and balks when John invites his younger loud-mouthed bud Paul (Cavin Gray Schneider) along for their latest adventure into the Arizona Coconino (?) forest (a new one on me, but a very cool location).

There's good tension between them as Julian and Paul constantly tear-down and one-up each other with John desperately trying to referee. Much like "Deliverance," however, the trio encounter an unexpected turn of events that has them fighting for their lives for two-thirds of the film.

I'd never seen any of these actors before, and I was extremely impressed with all of them, particularly Shane Dean's Julian, who takes a role that could have easily been written off into crazy-ville and instead makes it compelling and oddly tragic.

What really blew me away were the dream and drug-infused (via peyote, of course) sequences. For a low-budget movie, these were extremely creepy and vividly rendered.

The ending is chilling, and not easy to shake. The only minor quibble I have with the film is many of the insider survivalist techniques. They're not really "explained" very well, and there's ample opportunity to do so, given that Paul's character is a newbie.

But this is a minor flaw in an otherwise trippy, tense experience.

I had the opportunity of catching an advanced screening of this and was pleasantly surprised. We've all been duped before by fancy trailers and poster art so I went into this one with some hesitation. It lived up to the hype.

From the first frame you know this isn't the same indie film that we've seen for the past ten years. The cinematography (it was shot on the same camera as Greenzone) is undeniably the best I've seen for under $100,000. It's not just the look either, it's the feel. The film is more of a throwback to when indie film was a mentality more than a genre.

I can't say I would recommend this to everyone. It was a slow burner, pacing comparable to Moon or Transsiberian, with well placed punches of action throughout. That said, I wasn't bored for a moment. The characters and story kept me invested without unnecessary blood or nudity.

Deadfall Trail will be a film you either love or hate. I can imagine the divide occurring within the last act when the film takes a surprising turn.

I give it 8/10 and will definitely be seeing this again at the Phoenix Film Festival in April.

• Chris Heck

the actors all showed incredible heart in this movie, I gotta say it was intense. Awesome, the characters were all on the money. Ending was crazy but I saw it coming from way back. the main guy looked like the dude from hit-man and the crazies, Tim Olpyant or something. I'm high. kinda scary just to think about what could happen if you go to the woods with a stranger and things get twisted and you gotta go to war. See who da man be! Right... so its awesome just don't be a weeping willow and you will enjoy it. Some folks might want to go ahead and stop it when there's only like 2 mins left, completely different feel. Is this 10 lines yet, Christ!