High Lane (2009)

Truly Dreadful Film

Excellent, smart action film.

I am only giving this movie a 1 for the great cast, though I can't imagine what any of them were thinking. This movie was horrible

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

Poorly acted, poorly directed and as has been stated, poorly dubbed, this movie is a knock-off of a host of previously filmed movies jammed into one. Let's see, here is your plot. (I suppose this is the spoiler alert if you will) Young adults head off into the woods for a mere 3 hour rock climb that turns into much more than they bargained as they are tormented by some mountain man that eventually picks off all the poor defenseless (albeit stupid) young adults. Sounds like it has been done before? That's because it is pretty much the same premise as most other bad horror or suspense films. It even tries to pull off a certain type of "Blair Witch" ending as if any of us are going to believe there is even a hint of realism or truth behind the film. If you think of this as a B horror film that is maybe 1 to 1-1/2 stars, then you won't be misled. If you are expecting an intelligent and interesting thriller of the 3-4 star range, you will be sorely disappointed.

I watch many horror films on the Horror channel and most are dreadful (e.g. Camel Spiders) whilst a few are genuinely entertaining - this to my mind is one of the entertainers; even with sub-titles! Basically the first half is a tense climbing film and the second half is a better-than-average slasher film.The Good: 1. The acting was excellent, scenery stunning, the climbing well filmed and, refreshingly, the characters were not a bunch of annoyingly moronic teens drinking and partying themselves to an early grave; although I did find Luke irritating at times and rather immaturely (but manfully) I thought Chloe extremely sexy with her low-cut top and kept hoping for more......2. I find sheer drops and hanging over precipices bowel loosening so for me this film gains credit for delivering two types of scares: the hanging-from-a-rope-over-a-2,000ft-drop type and the someone-is-hunting-me type; though the first scared me more.3. The fight scenes on 'the rock' were bloody, brutal and the characters looked as if they were fighting for their lives (apart from item 2 in the 'mildly annoying' below).4. The use of sound to induce dread; the dentist drill as the first girl was killed, the sound of steel instrument being drawn and the thud of bodies as the two climbers hung in the cellar.The Mildly Annoying: 1. Why was Fred running through the trees when he was caught in the trap? Why did he not immediately throw down the rope to the climbers below? 2. An inability to finish the job. Both Luke and Chloe die because they were not willing to kill the killer. Luke had the advantage when he was hitting the killer on the head with a stone. Why throw away that advantage (literally) and crawl to the edge of the precipice? Chloe decided to show compassion and leave the killer alive behind her.3. Is it likely that the killer could loosen or cut a steel cable (carrying Chloe) with what looked like a small home-made knife? Overall a superior film of its genre and well worth a watch.

High Lane is set in the Croatian mountains where five friends decide it would be a good idea to spend the day climbing sheer cliff faces & navigating across the hazardous terrain. Experienced climber Fred (Nicolas Giraud) is the main man but he manages to convince his four friends including his girlfriend Karine (Maud Wyler) to carry on despite the mountain pass being closed & warning signs clearly visible, Fred's friends trust his judgement & decide to ignore the warnings. A few hours into their climb the five get into trouble & things go from bad to worse as Fred is caught in a Bear trap & dragged off by some inbred mutant killer who then goes after the other five teens in a fight for survival in the open wilderness who will win?This French production was directed by Abel Ferry & is best described as some predictable & generic cross between the Sylvester Stallone action flick Cliffhanger (1993) & the backwoods brutality teen slasher Wrong Turn (2003) without being nearly as good as either, shot under the title Vertige this really is & plays out exactly as it sounds. The script is uneven, the first half of High Lane is devoted purely to climbing cliff's & walking across perilous looking bridges & has an adventure film feel about it while the second half of the film switches gears & turns into a teen slasher of the most generic kind with some mountain freak killer stalking & killing the teens off as the rock climbing & adventure angle is totally dropped. With the usual clichéd mix of annoying teen character's & a killer with no motivation or background whatsoever High Lane doesn't have a lot going for it apart from a reasonable pace & one or two nicely shot sequences. Character motivation & behaviour is difficult to understand at times, why did the one guy try to leave the other behind to be killed? Why did the guy let the other go at the end & fall to his death? When Chloe feel down the pit why didn't she shout back up to her friends who were calling down to her? Why ignore all the warnings in the first place? Who was the killer? Why did he kill? Who built his house? Why does he not get a single line of dialogue in the entire film? As you might expect the teens are killed off by their own stupidity & the inbred killer until only one tough female survivor is left before a nothing sort of ending that leaves literally everything up in the air & unresolved. A very unsatisfying end to a very average & predictable teen slasher that tries to wrap itself up in an adventure film but both aspects come across as disappointing & High Lane ends up being neither one thing or another.Filmed on location in Croatia by a French cast & crew this is dubbed & is currently available as a free instant download on Netflix which is the only fate it really deserves as I wouldn't have liked to have spent money on it. There are a couple of decent moments like the rope bridge walk but they are few & far between I'm afraid, the gore is fairly restrained with a leg caught in a Bear trap, a couple of people are shot with arrows, there's a decapitated head & a slit throat but not much else & even the killer is forgettable as he just looks a dirty old man. The scenery & locations are nice to start off with as the makers use lots of sheer cliffs but once the slasher aspect kicks in the action switches to a standard woodland setting.Filmed in full 2:35:1 widescreen this looks nice enough as I have said with decent production values but there's nothing memorable here. The film is badly dubbed throughout so it's hard to judge the acting but I doubt it was great to begin with.High Lane is a throughly predictable, clichéd & uninspired teen slasher that throws in a few unrelated adventure film aspects that end up feeling out of place with the two different genres never gelling into anything particularly enjoyable. Sure it's competent & is't terrible but I can't say I liked it that much. There are much better films out there.

This movie started off excellent. The shots of the mountains and the beauty of nature shown through that first half of the film was just amazing and breath taking !! This movie has one of my favorite French actors Johan Libereau (Loic- or Luke)and the movie started out exciting, fresh, full of adventure, and was thrilling keeping me wanting more. When the leader (Fred) got caught in a bear trap I was tense with excitement, and wondered what they would do next. Then it went down hill right after that, and it just plummeted. I quite caring about the movie about 2 minutes after Fred got dragged away. It went from a great cinematic French experience (despite the terrible English dubbing) to a terrible wannabe-American-terrible C rate horror film. Loic became really annoying and whinny, ruining the talents of Johan (Les Temoins,Douches Froides,Q,and Un Coeur Simple). The flashbacks of Chloe and Im assuming her brother or former patient didn't match with the storyline in my opinion. Did I mention that the version I watched had terrible English dubbing ? The killer wasn't scary or intimidating, and the deaths the cast experience are ridiculous, especially Loic's and Karines. This movie goes from epic to worthless in a 3 minute span, I would suggest only watching the first half and not disappointing yourself with the rest.