This film is a lot to talk about.
First of all, I have to address the story this film is based on and how it is handled in this film. The Dyatlov Pass incident is a great tragedy about real people. There are lots of different theories about what had happened, with some of them being complete nonsense conspiracy theories or UFO encounters, but there are still some good and very detailed documentaries (one is around 9 hours long detailing all the members of the group) available on YouTube. The writers should have never integrated the original real story into the script the way they did. If you are taking real people's lives and deaths, you should either handle it the safest way possible or just disconnect from the real occurrences as much as possible. The approach the writer took could've worked if the ending was not such an incredibly sloppy mess of ideas. The sci-fi ideas set up in this film are clearly out of reach for this level of writing, they just couldn't handle it. I live in Ukraine, a post-Soviet country, and I know quite a lot about this event, not to brag about it. Sadly enough, the last remaining member of the group that had to retire from the route (this saved his life) died two months after the film was released.
Secondly, the writing was horrendous. I am not exaggerating, this script has everything, lots of plot holes (the second camera, enjoying a Russian winter in the mountains with just a sweater on, bothering with bomb charges to create an avalanche, Russian military in a green camo in snowy mountains and many more), badly written characters (like experienced mountaineers doing nonsensical things), inconsistent characters (running scared first and flailing a chain to attack in the next scene), and tons of excuses why the camera is still running since this is a found footage film. The dialogue in this film gets a special note, it's literally 50% exposition dumps, the most blatant ones, and 50% explanation of the viewer is supposed to be seeing, it is so incredibly unrealistic to hear people talking like that a supposedly found footage film. They completely remove any mystery from the movie by explaining everything. The ending is just atrocious, I have no idea why they have decided that this is a good idea. The ground idea of time travel and teleportation is ok, but the introduction of feral ghouls from Fallout is just beyond me (and occasionally showing them in the background for those who pays close attention). Again, they could've written an interesting time travel story with our main duo messing with themselves through time (like in that Bradbury story), instead it turned into a super generic creature horror of that time.
Thirdly, probably the most disappointing thing was that technically the film was done really well. It looked good, the sets and locations were nice, it was very authentic since some of the scenes were shot in Russia (although very far from the real spot). This is why it is so atmospheric, some of the scenes from the beginning of the film are truly magical. Also, many actors were real locals and all Russian that is spoken in the film is very natural. There were just two minor things that were not done perfectly - the fact that everybody in rural Russia speaks English (obviously it is the opposite), and the way the names and surnames of the Dyatlov group were butchered in pronunciation by the main lead. This movie is probably the only American major release I can think of that handles Russian reality so well and I know why. The crew behind the film was very multicultural with lots of Russians and Ukrainians involved. It had 3 producers from post-Soviet countries and one of them is a renowned and respected Ukrainian producer that now works in Hollywood.
To sum it up, The Dyatlov Pass Incident (2013) is an immersive experience that quickly got buried under an avalanche of horrible writing. I actually had high hopes for this film on release, but re-watching it now after 7 years only deepens my disappointment.
First of all, I have to address the story this film is based on and how it is handled in this film. The Dyatlov Pass incident is a great tragedy about real people. There are lots of different theories about what had happened, with some of them being complete nonsense conspiracy theories or UFO encounters, but there are still some good and very detailed documentaries (one is around 9 hours long detailing all the members of the group) available on YouTube. The writers should have never integrated the original real story into the script the way they did. If you are taking real people's lives and deaths, you should either handle it the safest way possible or just disconnect from the real occurrences as much as possible. The approach the writer took could've worked if the ending was not such an incredibly sloppy mess of ideas. The sci-fi ideas set up in this film are clearly out of reach for this level of writing, they just couldn't handle it. I live in Ukraine, a post-Soviet country, and I know quite a lot about this event, not to brag about it. Sadly enough, the last remaining member of the group that had to retire from the route (this saved his life) died two months after the film was released.
Secondly, the writing was horrendous. I am not exaggerating, this script has everything, lots of plot holes (the second camera, enjoying a Russian winter in the mountains with just a sweater on, bothering with bomb charges to create an avalanche, Russian military in a green camo in snowy mountains and many more), badly written characters (like experienced mountaineers doing nonsensical things), inconsistent characters (running scared first and flailing a chain to attack in the next scene), and tons of excuses why the camera is still running since this is a found footage film. The dialogue in this film gets a special note, it's literally 50% exposition dumps, the most blatant ones, and 50% explanation of the viewer is supposed to be seeing, it is so incredibly unrealistic to hear people talking like that a supposedly found footage film. They completely remove any mystery from the movie by explaining everything. The ending is just atrocious, I have no idea why they have decided that this is a good idea. The ground idea of time travel and teleportation is ok, but the introduction of feral ghouls from Fallout is just beyond me (and occasionally showing them in the background for those who pays close attention). Again, they could've written an interesting time travel story with our main duo messing with themselves through time (like in that Bradbury story), instead it turned into a super generic creature horror of that time.
Thirdly, probably the most disappointing thing was that technically the film was done really well. It looked good, the sets and locations were nice, it was very authentic since some of the scenes were shot in Russia (although very far from the real spot). This is why it is so atmospheric, some of the scenes from the beginning of the film are truly magical. Also, many actors were real locals and all Russian that is spoken in the film is very natural. There were just two minor things that were not done perfectly - the fact that everybody in rural Russia speaks English (obviously it is the opposite), and the way the names and surnames of the Dyatlov group were butchered in pronunciation by the main lead. This movie is probably the only American major release I can think of that handles Russian reality so well and I know why. The crew behind the film was very multicultural with lots of Russians and Ukrainians involved. It had 3 producers from post-Soviet countries and one of them is a renowned and respected Ukrainian producer that now works in Hollywood.
To sum it up, The Dyatlov Pass Incident (2013) is an immersive experience that quickly got buried under an avalanche of horrible writing. I actually had high hopes for this film on release, but re-watching it now after 7 years only deepens my disappointment.