Dark Mountain

I caught the premiere of this movie at the Austin Films Festival last night. The experience was enhanced by the screen writers and producers being in the audience. Firstly, the cinematography was very enjoyable. Shot in Arizona by the real-life Superstition Mountains, this movie is easy on the eyes with nature shots (and Sage Howard shots) alternating with sepia scenes (for when the characters are supposedly filming on their camera phones). The film makes great use of seemingly extended pauses before any tense moment, which left us leaning forward in our seats. However, I'll admit that the jump scares and sudden loud noises got old to me after a while, because I think I jumped every time the radio came on randomly. The filming in documentary style really helped us meet the characters. I enjoyed the dilemma the main character faced in her friends' safety versus great footage for her documentary. My biggest complaint is the number of unanswered questions. Three or four plot elements were introduced and then not later addressed to my satisfaction. This added to the suspense in the case of the time warps, but in most cases distracted me because I was left curious. The ending was complete but cliché. Conclusion: Paranormal Activity with more Frights and Eye Candy.

This movie is a cheap copy of THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT, and even a line in the script referencing BLAIR WITCH about 25 minutes in doesn't do much to help it. Instead of being lost in the forests of MD, these three characters are lost in the hills of AZ, searching for an old gold mine despite the numbers of predecessors who have turned up dead or gone missing while attempting the same feat. The characters are one dimensional, the script is predictable, and the movie just plain fails. Skip it.

I first heard about this movie several years before it came out. Saw some teaser trailers online and it really got me interested. I had no idea when it was supposed to be released and I scoured the internet dozens of times for any bits of information I could find on it. My excitement and anticipation could not have been higher. So when I finally saw it on a streaming site a few years ago I immediately watched it. Holy crap was it a let-down. It turned out to be nothing like the teasers I had seen previously. My disappointment was immeasurable and my day was ruined. There is absolutely nothing even remotely scary in this film. The very annoying characters spend most of their time wandering aimlessly in the desert and the cinematography felt like someone spent half a semester in an art-film class and then dropped out.

If you're going to make a found footage movie in which your sound is already more difficult to hear than a standard film, please add Closed Captions. (Turning the volume up for hard of hearing people is not recommended when there are loud booming jump scares.) There is no reason not to do this. I couldn't hear the actors and turned the movie off despite the nice scenery and intriguing premise, and it's a shame because I love found footage and was excited to watch this. Please think of this in the future.

The positive reviews for this movie are mind-boggling. The characters were poorly developed, the script was unnecessary, the scares were cheap, the plot was driven by gimmicks and the climax was non-existent. This film possibly had the worst ending I have ever seen, it certainly posed more questions than it answered, but I'm not sure what those even are. Just as the story began to take shape, though not a very interesting shape, the credits rolled. I searched for something positive to say about this film, though I came up with nothing substantial. I do remember being entertained at first, somewhat interested, even confident that the movie would take off. That never happened. I recommend you skip this film, even you are an avid viewer of found footage/mockumentary films.