[soliloquy id=”18629″]
Directed by Tara Anaise, Dark Mountain, is a movie just for lovers of found footage cinema.
It starts off very Blair Witch-esque with a hysterical women crying and addressing the camera with apologies, mentioning “this was a mistake”. Cutting back, three filmmakers set off in the mountains of Arizona while documenting their search for the legend of the Lost Dutchman mine. Our travelers include Paul the skeptic (Andrew Simpson- The Phoenix Project), his ambitious girlfriend Kate (Sage Howard- The Evil Inside), and best friend Ross (Shelby Stehlin- Truth Or Dare) who has family ties to the mountains.
They buy a cheap list of “clues” at the museum gift shop before dragging their camping gear into the wilderness with a poorly drawn map. Almost immediately they are convinced someone is following them. It’s on day two that things really start to get weird as they see dead animals impaled on stakes near a cave, and of course go inside to investigate. Paul finds and quartz fragment containing a vein of gold and pockets the find.
Things start to go bad for the group as their camp is trashed, but as it’s late in the day they decide to stay until the morning. Paul walks off from camp during the night, only to be found by Ross, who films his friend acting strangely and delivering the infamous line “you’re all going to die” before collapsing and waking up dazed and confused. The next day Paul is adamant they should stay at the same camp, much to the bewilderment of his other camp-mates.
When they stumble onto an abandoned campsite they find a disturbing journal and recordings from the 1970s that basically describe the exact events they themselves are experiencing. They eventually concluding that they should leave the territory for the sake of their safety, but the group soon find themselves lost, out of water and desperate in the darkness.
Overall it’s not the worst found footage I’ve even seen, the eye candy and acting certainly made up for its mistakes and unanswered questions, but Dark Mountain is certainly only for lovers of the found footage genre.
WICKED RATING: 4/10 [usr 4]
Title: Dark Mountain
Director(s): Tara Anaise
Writer(s): Tara Anaise
Stars: Sage Howard, Shelby Stehlin, Andrew Simpson
Year: 2013
Studio/ Production Co: Superstitious Films
Budget: (unknown)
Language: English
Length: 82mins
Sub-Genre: Sci-Fi, Thriller
