Intensity: 🩸🩸 for light body horror and paranoia
Directed by Nick Szostakiwskyj
There are elements of an excellent survival horror tale here, but the end product is inconsistent in this half-thawed stew of madness and isolation.
A group of scientists has unearthed Meso-American (read… Central American) artifacts and what appears to be the emerging tip of a temple in a northern British Columbia outpost. It’s a mystery to be sure, quite possibly an archaeological discovery with real history-changing implications. But wouldn’t you know it? Winter is setting in, and the days are getting shorter. The mystery begins to reveal an ugly side as well, as slowly the research crew starts exhibiting signs of madness and disfiguring illness.
Left stranded and blocked from communication, the men go stir-crazy. Some of the men are visited upon by a malevolent spirit, who offers suggestions of treachery, sowing seeds of paranoia and suicide on an already on-edge group. The scientists forge on with their studies, and eventually, conclude that the temple is the source of a mind and body-altering bacterial strain, but it may just be too late to save themselves from each other.
The movie has a solid base story from Nick Szostakiwskyj. It also features some beautiful cinematography from Lensman Cameron Tremblay. I was inspired to watch this movie because of Hammer of the Gods, the next movie they did together that was shown at the H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival, which I liked very much. When I realized it would be a while before that film got released for streaming, I figured I’d see if Black Mountainside would be a good introduction for moviegoers to get that flavor. And… a little yes, and a little no.
Alas, their first outing is pretty uneven. Just because the story idea is strong, doesn’t mean the script and dialogue are on point. The timeline seems odd, in that many days go by, but there doesn’t seem to be an urgency to get help. (I think I saw a snowmobile that could have been handy.) The temple’s discovery is a complete MacGuffin, but it isn’t as integral to the story as, say, The Ruins. The Temple could have been a scarier element, but I suspect the budget for the film only allowed for a small chunk of the ruins to be excavated.
The acting comes and goes, where at times it really feels like the actors are reading lines. Or, sometimes, they mumble and are difficult to understand. The actors sometimes struggled to explain the scientific findings without seeming like memorized dialogue. Also, it did not help that they would repeat themselves. Edit, please! Yes, I get that it’s Meso-American, in Canada, but one good tight pass at that exposition dump would have helped the movie’s pace. And, unfortunately, in the moments of highest drama, it felt as if the actors are shouting but not tapping into their emotional reserves. Yelling and pounding on things doesn’t make it particularly resonant.
The acting works really well in the individual studies of isolation. When the camera focuses on the internal madness the story works. Then, the actors each seem to find their marks. The boredom, weariness, and wild-eyed schizophrenia appear in those quiet moments. Michael Dickson’s archaeologist Professor Olsen seems to be the center of the story, and his presence commands attention whenever he’s on screen. I also thought that Andrew Moxham’s Dr. Andervs was the most natural performance of the lot. Unfortunately, he doesn’t get a whole lot of the meatier crazy stuff to play with. Many of the actors are veteran supporting players from Vancouver’s burgeoning television studio system. This was a chance for many of them to get more dialogue in, a golden opportunity.
Tremblay, as he did in Hammer of the Gods, does a stellar job of capturing both the beauty and the intimidating vastness of the Canadian wilderness. It’s just so… big. There are moments when the camera pulls back to show the men in the distance, which is very effective. This location is remote and lonely—classic Canadian horror. Despite the frigid conditions, the characters only occasionally seemed uncomfortable. The cast also had the terrible habit of entering a building and not closing the door behind them. A clear sign that maybe this wasn’t the coldest place on the planet. Hey, do you live in a barn?
This movie owes a huge debt to The Thing. The all-male cast of researchers is isolated in a cold region and forced into battles of trust. That much is quite effective. You believe the psychological torment they are going through. Where Black Mountain Side falls well short of the Carpenter classic is in the execution of the effects of the temple. One man starts going through a parasitic infestation, and in reaction to something horrible moving under his skin, the crew amputates his arm with an axe. They really could have used a Tom Savini or a Rob Bottin here. The arm looked too small and obviously rubbery. It seems like they abandoned the idea of continuing the pathogen route in favor of the psychological trauma, as he was the only one who went through that disfigurement.
What became more threatening was the presence of a deer-god evil spirit. It spoke in subwoofer rumbling tones, and it sounded wonderfully ominous. And then you saw the deer-god. It looked like bad taxidermy. Having seen The Ritual, I know you can pull off a terrifying deer-creature. This looked like a dopey deer standing on its hind legs and was cringeworthy. The practical effects used in the middle of the film failed to convince. It seems like they had the kernel of a great idea but an imperfect understanding of how to pull off the scares.
To say that this is a film without merits, though would be a disservice. The film’s beginning introduces the characters and the scenario works well. A terrific element that is foreshadowed in the first act pays off brilliantly at the conclusion. And, it’s a famous trope, which I won’t spoil. It is one of those classic moves that you hint at in many movies, and then spring it on the audience once they’ve forgotten about it. You can see the potential in Szostakiwskyj and Tremblay in this outing. They learned from this movie and took many of its better elements (The stuff under the skin, the isolation in the woods) to better effect in their next go-round.
Black Mountain Side is not rated, but would probably be a light R, for violence and a bunch of F-bombs. It streams for free if you have an Amazon Prime account. It’s also available for rent on Google Play, Vudu, and iTunes.