Killer Mountain (2011)

Directed by Sheldon Wilson [Other horror films: Shallow Ground (2004), Kaw (2007), Screamers: The Hunting (2009), Carny (2009), Mothman (2010), Red: Werewolf Hunter (2010), Scarecrow (2013), Shark Killer (2015), The Unspoken (2015), The Hollow (2015), The Night Before Halloween (2016), Neverknock (2017), Stickman (2017), Dead in the Water (2018)]

While Killer Mountain isn’t a particularly good movie, I do have to give it credit for a somewhat unique premise. It’s still not really worth seeing, but if you do take a chance with this, at least you get some mountain action.

There’s not that many horror films that deal with mountain-climbing, so if that’s something you have a hankering for, look no further. There are some moderately suspenseful sequences here, such as a person trying to rescue someone from a helicopter hanging off a 2,000 feet drop, which was fun.

Really, what gives this movie a slightly more interesting feeling is the setting, being the Gangkhar Puensum mountain in Bhutan. To be sure, this wasn’t at all filmed there, but for an in-universe setting, it’s unique, and seeing people trying to climb a snowy peak has a nice adventurous aura to it. It helps that the dragon-like creatures are attempting to consume them, of course.

I can’t say there were many performances that really stood out. I guess that Aaron Douglas (The Monster, Blood: A Butcher’s Tale) made an okay lead. He was at least different from the generic young, pretty guy. Everyone else pretty much had the occasional moment, such as Andrew Airlie, Crystal Lowe (Wrong Turn 2 and Yeti: Curse of the Snow Demon), Paul Campbell (Severed), and Torrance Coombs, but this isn’t a movie to watch for the performances.

To be sure, I don’t think it’s a movie to watch for the dragon-like creatures either, as we’re barely able to make them out. At the same time, that might have been a wise decision, especially if the special effects wouldn’t have been up to snuff, which seems likely based on the few more creature-centrict scenes we did get. There was also a leech-type thing with quite sharp teeth, which looked disturbing, but save for one sequence, these didn’t really appear at all.

Killer Mountain wasn’t a movie I found that remarkable when I first saw it, and it’s only because it takes place on a mountain in Bhutan that I tend to remember the film. It’s not a bad watch, but it’s nowhere near stellar, and I wouldn’t personally go out of my way to see this one a third time.

5.5/10