Terrific little thriller that would have been better with another 20 minutes cut out of it. It’s a worthy entry into that horror sub-genre, the “bunch of people trapped in a location” film, which also includes Buried (coffin), Devil (elevator), Black Water (swamp with a crocodile), Cujo (car), Open Water (ocean). Here they are stuck up a chairlift at the end of a day’s skiing – the operators have gone home, the resort is shutting down for a few days and wolves are prowling downstairs. It’s a fantastic idea – I would guess most skiers have been afraid of such a thing happening even if only once.
It helps that the actors aren’t too bad and their dialogue is quite witty, helping pass the time until they get stuck. It also means the people stuck there are real characters (well, real-ish) which makes us feel for them and adds to the emotional intensity of what’s going on. The entire sequence in the middle where they realise they’re stranded and which ends in tragedy is marvellous (there’s a real “what would you do in that situation” moment where their friend is being attacked and they’re up in the chair). The next day things slow down, though, with what seems like a long slab of dialogue that saps the film of tension. This felt like it took ages. Then it sparks up again with an escape attempt and ends satisfactorily (although part of me was thinking the girl would get run over at the end). Pleasing locations and believable storms and wolf acting – stuff that’s very hard to do.
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