Snowman's Pass

Judging by the slew of bad reviews, the 2004 made-for-TV movie, "What Lies Above" (aka "Snowman's Pass") is a load of rubbish. I'm sure it was just that – on TV where tension was dissipated by incessant rounds of atmosphere-destroying commercials. On DVD, however, "Snowman's Pass" comes across despite all its faults (shaky acting, a holey plot, obvious penny-pinching), as fairly suspenseful entertainment. Indeed it actually delivers a few really exciting, edge-of-the-seat moments. Marc Singer's acting was certainly over-the-top, but nonetheless enjoyably grotesque. The other leads (particularly Nicole Eggert, George Stults) were okay. Admittedly the three minor players (the soon-to-be-departed boyfriend, the dull storekeeper, the inattentive weather station jerk) were less than impressive, but none of them were on-screen long enough to do too much damage.

The limited scenery views were the only saving grace to an otherwise uneventful and boring movie. The acting was borderline absurd which I blame on the script and screenplay. Nicole Eggert didn't look the part, didn't act the part, and was totally unconvincing as a mountain guide. After watching this I was left with the feeling that some friends had some free time and decided to make a movie. It must have been produced on a budget of pocket change. The plot was thin at best and with the low caliber of acting at times it begged the question to be asked, "Why are we doing this?". I managed to sit through the entire movie but also asked myself, "Why?".

Somehow, I really thought that I was going to enjoy this film because I love pictures with mountain climbing and a great mystery in the plot. I must say that the photography was fantastic and there was some scary scenes that captured my attention. I thought that Nicole Eggert,(Diana Pennington),"Thank You, Good Night",'01 played a very convincing role as a young girl who had a tragic loss in her life and meets up with some characters who want her to guide them up the mountain. Marc Singer, "Angel Blade",'02, played a very unconvincing weird guy and over acted in many scenes with a bad temper that looked comical. This film was a big disappointed and not worth watching, unless there is nothing on the TV to ENJOY!!

"What Lies Above" 2004. It goes by different titles .. Original Title: Snowman's Pass 2004; Now Title: What Lies Above 2004; and YouTube Title: Death Pass 2004 // Marc Singer has a great personna, but he is hammy. If you thought he was hammy in the Beast Master TV Series, 2001-02 ... you will be shocked to find out he is even more hammy in this. The story is pretty cookie cutter, and they try to get all into techy stuff, but between the writers and the director, no one knows the difference between a floppy disk and a monkey wrench. // The Bushwacker 10/3/2021.

So I caught this one afternoon as "What Lies Above" and actually watched it because the beginning was somewhat promising. The heroine, Diana Pennington, is a mountain climbing expert...but that doesn't help her when her fiancé Brian gets hurt on a climb. When she goes off to get help and returns, he disappears from the mountain, never to be seen again.

Two years later, Diana is still a climber...but she won't go near Snowman's Pass. That is, until Curt Seaver appears and tells her that he can find the body of her lost fiancé with a new satellite program. She agrees and they take off up the mountain with Curt's two assistants: His "bodyguard" Hugo and the computer whiz Tyler. From the start, you know that there's some ulterior motive going on, but unfortunately the twists aren't good and lead to a laughably bad chase sequence that makes up the last 20 or 30 minutes of the movie.

The major disappointments are the red herrings, most of which have supernatural undertones that never come to fruition. The object from the sky that fell into the mountains (which turns out to be not so supernatural), the story of how Snowman's Pass came to be, and the most memorable one of them all: Diana's dream sequence halfway through the movie. But what disappointed me most is where they dropped the ball. The majority of the movie revolves around the search for Brian, that's why I can't for the life of me begin to understand why the mystery of what exactly happened to him and where he was is never solved through the course of the movie. This was the major plot. This was how the movie STARTED! How do you NOT wrap that up?

I wouldn't tell too many people to bother with this one...