Hell Mountain

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.

Staring at a garbage can is more enjoyable. Don't.

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.

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.

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.