Devil's Pass

Harlan's film -- written by Vikram Weet -- is a routine low-budget genre picture, with blandly attractive young actors overmatched by the freakiness lurking in the wilderness.

Made with just enough craft that, were you to stumble upon it late at night during a bout of insomnia, you wouldn't mind watching through to the end.

The film is ridiculous and laugh-out-loud funny, though it's sometimes hard to tell if this is intentional or not. Either way, it remains riveting because of its effective tropes.

An hour of waiting for something to happen followed by 30 minutes of silliness.

The awe-inspiring mountain vistas serve to ratchet up the claustrophobic intensity against the characters' blithe, even foolish, attitudes.

As Renny Harlin's career progresses, it seems more and more that his early gems were merely happy accidents.

The Dyatlov Pass Incident is one of the more fascinating events in the world of true crime, and while the story ultimately fails to bring any interesting angles to the mystery, the lack of competing storylines center around the event brings some appeal.

There usually comes a point when anyone behaving rationally would stop filming a horrific experience, and Devil's Pass hits that early on.

If you are going to do a movie like Devil's Pass or Chernobyl Diaries - both that have such a mysterious and creepy back story - you need to do it well.

The final act feels somewhat tacked on and crosses the line between fantastical to slightly amusing ridiculousness.