good back-story, and good acting

Admirable film.

The movie's not perfect, but it sticks the landing of its message. It was engaging - thrilling at times - and I personally thought it was a great time.

The joyful confection is coated in a sparkly gloss, bright enough to gleam from the darkest, most cynical corners.

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.

Descent meets Vertical Limit. Awesome cinematography, great directing, and great acting actually makes up for a corny plot and poor character development. Young friends venture out on afternoon mountaineering trip, that turns very bad. I watched the Netflix version, and I think it was dubbed into English. If so, it was done very well. After 10 minutes in, I completely forgot about the fact that it was dubbed. Overall, a solid 8-9. Yes, it's missing character development, and the plot is corny. But, there's never a dull moment in the whole movie, and it will have you gripping at your seat. Combine that with the BEAUTIFUL cinematography, and it's a must-see.

A group of young friends decide to escalate the peak at Risnjak, Croatia. The five have prepared themselves for what appears to be one of the most difficult climbs ever. Among them, only four, Fred, Karine, Guillaume and Chloe have experience, but the fifth member of the group, Loic, is new at the sport. To complicate things, Guillaume and Chloe were romantically involved. Now Chloe is seeing Loic which puts a bit of a strain in the situation.As they arrive to the bottom of the peak, there is a sign which Fred ignores, or just does not comprehend because it is a warning the trail is closed. Fred insists in going. The first part goes well, somehow, with Loic showing his fear because of his inexperience. They must traverse a long bridge that begins to collapse and almost kills Karine, who at one point is seen dangling from the cables until pulled to safety by Fred.As they reach the top, they find a wooded area. Fred, trying to find a way to go back walks into a some sort of animal track which crushes his leg. The friends have no clue about what is going to happen. They have arrived at an area that is full of traps. A mad lunatic has created a scenario where the five young mountaineers will be trapped with no clear way to get back to their world.Directed by Abel Ferry, it has an intriguing beginning. The trouble lies on the screenplay conceived by Johanne Bernard and Raphael Lenglet that goes for the horror as the group is trapped. Complicating the whole thing is a mad individual that has created a world unfit for humans. It is a place that not even the brave should attempt for this monster has figured out what to do with those who trespass his realm. The first part of the film plays well, but everything goes haywire after the arrival at the wooded area at the top.Fanny Valette, seen as Chloe is about the best thing in the film. Her character is fighting its own demons that are not completely and satisfactorily explained. She has done much better in other films. The picture is supposed to take place in Croatia but one suspects this was shot entirely in France. Nicolas Massart captures the essence of the adventure in its breathtaking surroundings. The musical score is by Jean-Pierre Taieb.

I was looking forward to watching this one, even a halfhearted blatant Descent/Wrong Turn ripoff could have worked if the whole thing wasn't buried under such an annoying script. Starts of with some promising landscape shots but as soon as the climbing starts it turns out one member of the group has vertigo. Sure there are worse ideas than putting a guy with vertigo on a voluntary mountain hike but almost the whole first half of the movie solely relies on that to create tension and panic. Combined with the weak acting of this guy, the rest of the group (only the grumpy ex-boyfriend character was kinda neutral) and some of the most uninspired by- the-numbers dangerous situations it only takes about 20 minutes until I started to keep my fingers crossed for them to die all at once within the next 5-10 minutes. Oh and and after they completely lost it the Descent/Wrong Turn ripoff starts, emphasis more on the wrong turn side.