A group of people wake up naked in a snowy wilderness, with no clear idea of how they got there. They stumble their way to an isolated log cabin. Inside, they find underwear, a dead woman, and a note.
According to this note, one of them killed the woman. They have until 5pm to work out which of them it was, and punish that person with death.
Is one of them really a killer? Can they find a way out of this predicament? Who brought them here? These are all questions that seem impossible to answer, but they are going to have to try.
Through a series of flashbacks, we learn that each of the people in the cabin attended an erotic party the previous night. Their reasons for being at the party vary wildly, as do their responses to their current situation.
Naturally, as time elapses and stress mounts, their differences of opinion on what to do grow starker and more embittered. They've already been told that one of them must die ... but will it end up being more?
This film can also be found under the title Snowbound, which is how it is listed on IMDB. It's a low budget, high concept thriller-style 'horror' film.
Like a lot of such films, I think it struggles to deliver on the promise of the premise. As I have noted before, writing good endings is a lot harder than coming up with an intriguing initial hook. The basic scenario is an interesting one, but I was less convinced by the
resolution. I can see that they were going for psychological horror, "what would you do if your life were on the line?" but the actual scenario presented seems implausible, and the ending lacked clarity.
An area for which I have seen the film criticised is the acting. I think this is a little unfair. It is evident that English is not the native language of many of the cast members, which is a significant impediment. Given that significant disadvantage I think they do a solid job. They emote reasonably effectively, if sometimes in ways that feel a bit "stagey". Probably a bigger issue for me is that the majority of the characters they are playing are not very likeable people. It's difficult to care much about the fate of most of these folk.
Production-wise, it's clear that the film-makers have worked hard to minimise costs where they can. Some of the methods used are obvious techniques, such as limiting the cast and sets. The film has only a quite small number of speaking roles and almost all the action happens either in the cabin, in the woods directly outside, or in the mansion where the sex party took place - basically just three locations. There are some more sophisticated and clever cost-cutting strategies, though, I particularly liked the use of a model of the cabin, owned by the 'mastermind', to stand in for the cabin itself at times. This allowed them to tell us what was happening in the cabin without avoid the need for expensive effects.
The cinematography - by Halayna Hutchins, who would be tragically killed in 2021 in an on-set accident on the film Rust - is a strong point. It's well thought out and executed.
As an example, as noted in the synopsis, the entire cast starts nude. But if you came for the titillation, you will be likely disappointed by the opening sequence. The cinematography here eschews ogling the actors' bodies, while also nimbly and cleverly averting overly blatant contrivance to avoid incidental skin. There's little sense of artificiality, which shows care, attention and judgement.
There is more overt nudity later, in the flashbacks to the sex party. This may be a positive or a negative, depending on your perspective. Also, while I have no first hand experience of sex parties, I doubt that anyone would be allowed to wander about with a mobile phone so obviously!
Ultimately, this is probably one to watch more for the potential of the ideas than the actual execution of them.
No comments:
Post a Comment