Snow Falls is directed by Colton Tran and
written by Luke Genton and Laura M. Young, along with Colton himself, and
starring Anna Grace Barlow, Jonathan Bennett, Johnny Berchtold, and Patrick
Fabian. Music scored by Johnny X Martinez, cinematography by Michael Dean
Greenwood, and editing by Colton Tran.
After a winter storm traps the five friends
in a remote cabin without power or food, a disorientation slowly claims their
sanity as each succumbs to the fear that the snow itself may be contaminated or
some form of evil.
Snow Falls opens with a warning sign, a pair
of ravens perched on a sign welcoming the characters to the town of Snow Falls.
A big warning sign for onlookers should be an argument going on inside their
vehicle. Someone studies sitting on someone's leg or complains about someone
not wearing a seat belt. The kind of meaningless chatter that makes you wonder
why these people get together.
But five of them, Kit played by Colton Tran,
M played by Victoria Morales, Eden played by Anna Grace Barlow, Andy played by
James Gosford, and River played by Johnny Berchtold are on a trip to spend New
Year's Eve in a “Cabin” is owned by River's family. "Is this your second
home?" "Third, if you count what we build on Martha's Vineyard".
A minor difference here is that phone
reception is "spotty" rather than non-existent, so the group can take
calls when the plot requires it. One is from River's father played by Patrick
Fabian and they hear from their friend Jace played by Jonathan Bennett, warning
of a snowstorm.
That storm, a bomb tornado with blizzard
status, hit shortly after midnight, quickly knocking out power and making roads
impassable. They were trapped in the cabin with limited firewood and no more
alcohol than food. Now if I had written Snow Falls it would have been part of a
hungry sasquatch coming out of the woods. But I didn't write it that way,
instead, it turns out to be a weak survival movie at first, and then Rivers
theorizes that they're behaving strangely, seeing things, seeing cold, food,
and sleeplessness. Not because Snow is infected with some kind of virus.
Now if there was a virus, cabin fever would
have gone away by the time the snow fell and maybe the movie would have been
saved. Instead, we get some hallucinations, people doing stupid things like
freezing themselves in skimpy clothes. The infamous Russian sleep experiment is
mentioned, everyone winds themselves up a little too much, and a lot of
silliness ensues as they start to turn on each other.
There are some funny scenes in Snow Falls,
where the snowman was kind of creepy trying to break a glass door with his
carrot nose. The idea of a toxic blizzard would make for an entertaining movie.
But Tran and Benton take it too seriously and fail to deliver any real fear or
tension. They need to decide if they're making a psychological thriller or a
horror film and just go with it without achieving anything.
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