Go Tell It On a Mountain

One of my favorite background viewing options is I Shouldn't Be Alive, a docu-series that interviews survivors of near-death experiences as reenactments walk us through their insane battles with the elements. There's an element of wonder at what the human body can do when tested, as well as the occasional satisfaction at the comeuppance earned by brash young people underestimating the natural world. On that note, whenever an episode involves rock climbing, I tend to make a double serving of popcorn. Of COURSE you're going to have near-death experiences when your tiny human hands are carrying the rest of your body over even tinier grooves!

Hence, I tend to dig the survivalist horror genre, particularly when it might involve craggy rocks. 

Quick Plot: Sophie brings sad pal Kelly to the Dolomites for an intensive hike, where their cabin neighbors turn out to be fellow Americans. Josh, the alpha of the male quartet, cheats on his fiancee and tosses around homophobic slurs like it's 1993. His friends are far from amused, but since Josh has been collecting potential blackmail material on them for 20 years, they grin and bear it. 

The group parties around a campfire, Sophie getting progressively drunker and higher and with that, flirtier to Josh. She also playfully jabs at his manhood (which goes as well as expected). Josh follows her to the woods and attempts an assault. His pals break it up, but the damage is done. Sophie now poses a threat, and that's all it takes for Josh to push her off a cliff and convince his friends to bash her head in with a rock.

The resourceful Kelly captures it on camera and manages to retrieve her half-packed gear bag before fleeing to the gorges. The men, who are less experienced climbers but better equipped, are hot on her blistered heels. 

Kelly turns inward to stay alive. One year earlier, she lost her fiance in a, dare I say, comical accident on that very hill. Luca taught her everything she knew about navigating those rocks, but as he went to reach for the engagement ring in a poorly timed proposal, he plummeted to his death. Think that Ace Ventura opening that parodied Cliffhanger. 

The guys share their own terrible memories. Some time earlier, they teamed up for a hate crime, like dudes apparently do. Today, their consciences sit at various stages of morality, though none as comically evil as Josh.

Played by the titular Christmas Prince Ben Lamb, Josh is a bit ridiculous as a villain, but thankfully, The Ledge seems to agree. His friends genuinely hate him. That doesn't make it fun for US to listen to his sexist, racist rants, but at least we can somewhat trust that the movie is also rolling its eyes. 

The Ledge is directed by The Dead's Howard J. Ford, who carved out his (and brother's) own unique genre niche with his pair of zombie films. Similarly, The Ledge shares a great eye for the natural environment. The actual mountain climb is efficiently intense, and lead Brittany Ashworth (the teen daughter from the woefully underseen Exhibit A) makes for a believably athletic final girl.

All of that shouldn't REALLY suggest that The Ledge is a good film. Between the uneven script and discomfort in some of the performances, it ust can't seem to find its own rhythm. The opening makes virtually all of the characters insufferable in how they talk to one another, and while I appreciate how the film seems to see these men for the worthlessly weak-to-blatantly-evil characters they are, the actual execution of their own inner drama just never clicks into place. 

And yet, at a certain point, I knew that I was enjoying The Ledge. It looks great, it moves fast, and by its brief 86th minute, I had mostly received what was advertised. 

High Points

Rock climbing is hard. Based on the two times I encountered one of those kid-walls in 5K with obstacles, I'd even say IMPOSSIBLE. By far, the best thing about The Ledge is that it gets close to the action. I have no idea how accurate the dynamics of Kelly's climb are to an experienced athlete, but Ford's camera makes it feel alive, hard, and terrifying

Low Points

As mentioned, the actual dynamic of these four men is so insufferable that it makes much of the film incredibly unpleasant

Lessons Learned

Telling a hot chick you just met that she shares a name with your mother is not the hot pickup line you hear in your head

Nothing heals a broken leg faster than guzzling a dozen painkillers at once and chasing them down with foamy whiskey

Climbing is best described as chess mixed with ballet

Rent/Bury/Buy

The Ledge has a LOT of problems, but if you're in the mood for a survivalist slasher set on a mountain, you probably can't do much better. Find it on Hulu if the mood strikes. 

England's Not So Funny Home Video

 

Ever since Heather Donohue let her final nasal buildup drop into our souls in 1999, found footage has almost exclusively been associated with horror. Sure, the oddball Project X or Chronicle has occasionally come along to take the style into other genres, but for the most part, shaky cam and "DID YOU SEE THAT?!" dialogue on repeat has been reserved for our kinds of movies.

This makes Exhibit A such an oddball film. Its cover art clearly feels like it belongs next to your Paranormal Activitys and CrowsNests, but the final product is far more akin to Michael Haneke's The Seventh Continent. Perhaps its lack of easy classification is why I never heard of this 2007 gem until now.

Quick Plot: Meet the Kings, a middle class British family ready to test out their newest toy: a user-friendly handheld video camera. Dad Andy is a jovial salesman eager to document some family fun, while teenage daughter Judith uses it as a chance to get a closer look at her beautiful sunbathing neighbor. 

Much of Exhibit A unrolls like a simple compilation family film, but there's a sense of immense impending dread that makes you hold your breath for a good portion of its running time. As Andy and mom Sheila start the process of buying a new home and adding a pool to up the selling value of their own, it becomes all too clear that things are not quite what they seem, at least in Andy's professional life. 

Written and directed by Dom Rotheroe (with a story credit for Darren Bender and much of the filming done by the actual cast), Exhibit A is ferociously good, hard-to-categorize film that will leave you feeling more disturbed than a good deal of what passes for straight horror. We know it's leading somewhere dark, but it's the constant squirming sadness of watching a seemingly normal family fall apart that makes the entire 85 minute run time feel interminable. 

As Andy, Bradley Cole plays a man who lives to be the jovial center of fun. When life makes that impossible, he simply can't handle it, and his spirited, long-suffering wife is justifiably past the point of understanding. When their fighting erupts into Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? depths of long-simmering hate, we as the audience want to crawl under the Kings' kitchen table and rock ourselves back and forth. 

This is a powerful, disturbing, and incredibly well-made film. I'll likely never want to watch it again, but that won't stop me from recommending it to anyone up for its darkness.

High Points

It's one thing to watch a violent man go crazy and hurt his family, but it's a whole deeper conflict when said man clearly does love them. The fact that Andy, upon discovering a window in Judith's secret sexuality, wants to enthusiastically support her makes it even clearer that Exhibit A is about people, not shocks. This man is not evil; he's just incredibly unstable, and in the end, this story is all the more sad and affecting for it

Low Points

The only negative I have for this film comes in its marketing, which clearly positions it in such a way that most viewers will inevitably sit down expecting a very different style of film

Lessons Learned

You can't disturb the top soil when it's raining!

Girls prefer it if you're not quite so obvious

If you can't talk, you can't sell

Random Spoiler Tie with What Keeps You Alive

Much has been written about the awful "kill your gays" trend that seems to so often target lesbians in television and film. Exhibit A and What Keeps You Alive have very little in common as movies (aside from both being incredibly good and high recommendations from me), but it's fascinating that both end on the exact same note: our heroine, who happens to be a queer woman, letting out the smallest gasp of air to leave the audience with hope that she will live. In both cases, it's a moment loaded with heft because we certainly know she'll have a hard path forward, but still, for all of the dead supporting LGBTQ+ characters we find in our genre stories, there's something to be thankful for in these two cases

Rent/Bury/Buy

Exhibit A is not a film I'll want to revisit any time soon (if ever), but I'd also shout from the virtual rafters that those with a strong stomach looking for a heavy, disturbing, important hard-to-classify genre film give it a chance. I'm shocked that I'd never heard of it until recently, when it should be a title to regularly show up on those constant "best found footage film" listicles the internet seems to love. It's streaming now on Prime and deserves your eyeballs when they're ready.