Macabre…ish Horror Review: Devil’s Pass
Devil’s Pass, 2013/ 96 min
(The Dyatlov Pass Incident)
Nine students, out of a group of 10 scientists, mysteriously died in a 1959 expedition of the Ural Mountains, the tenth one turned around after immediately becoming ill on the first day.
Fifty years later, five students, Holly (Holly Goss), Jensen (Matt Stokoe), JP (Luke Albright), Andy (Ryan Hawley) and Denise (Gemma Atkinson) want to find out what happened to the hikers in what is known as the Dyatlov Pass Incident. An incident that they cannot get anyone to talk about. The local natives, the Mansi, believe the area is where two world’s collide. And the official story is the group developed hypothermic dementia and died.
The first attempt to contact the only living member of the group, Peter Kuroff, who is hospitalized, when the documentarists arrive to talk to him, he is told the man has died. He then spots him in a window, being dragged away by orderlies. He holds a sign that says ‘Stay Away’
Later the group is introduced to Alya (Nelly Nielsen) who was apart of the first search and rescue team and she says they recovered 11 bodies, not 9 as was reported, but something was wrong with 2 of the bodies.
The next morning at the campsite, it is immediately weird, something is howling and there are bare foot prints to nowhere. After further investigation they find a tower and inside on the floor is a human tongue. Then a few of them find a bunker, it is irradiated and is meant to lock something or someone in but it is frozen shut.
And the next morning, everything is immediately worse, a loud explosion, triggers an avalanche, one of them is severely injured and one killed and most of the rest are certain that it was purposely done to silence them. A presumed rescue team arrives and it turns out to be Russian Army, Andy is killed and the surviving three flee to the bunker.
As they take refuge inside, it appears to be abandoned and pitch black. A network of tunnels and a lab plus files of what exactly has been going on here and is still going on, it is quite a surprise. Oh and at the other end of the tunnel network are mutated creatures coming toward them.
Their only choice is to face the mutants, die of dehydration or they can go deeper. Deeper in, may be the only way out.
This Russian/English horror is a part documentary style, part POV movie, complete with interviews and recreated evidence that nicely fill in the entire story. The action scenes are good! The CG is just ok and the physical and monster effects are pretty good. The audio is English and Russian. Very entertaining!