Plot: What’s it about?
Captain John Boyd (Guy Pearce) has been sent to a discrete military outpost in the Sierra Nevada’s near the end of the Mexican – American War. The post is running on a skeleton crew since it is the heart of winter and few people pass through the check point in the winter. Boyd checks into the leader of the post Hart (Jeffrey Jones) and he shows him around the camp and introduce Boyd to the rest of the crew. Eight men in all including a pair of native Americans that are brother and sister. While sitting around the fire in the cabin a man appears outside the window for a brief second and frightens Boyd. The men go outside to check on what he saw. They find a man outside that has frost bite and is starving. They warm him up with a hot bath and check his wounds and then let him rest over night. When he awakes in the morning he, Colquhoun (Robert Carlyle) a lost traveler on his way to California, tells them of a story that his team was stranded in the deep snow in the mountains and they stayed in a cave until it passed. They turned to cannibalism to stay alive and he ran out when he thought his life was threatened.
The men pack up and go out to the cave to see if there are any survivors left. On the way there they find out some things about Colquhoun that makes some of the men wonder why they are even heading out to check on the cave and why they even believe this man. They get to the cave and two men are checking on the contents of the cave when they learn that they were set up by Colquhoun all along.
I liked this movie and to my surprise actually enjoyed it. It may have been because I had an idea of what to expect, a dark comedy slash horror movie. (no pun intended) In some scenes when men are being chased for their life the music being played by the composer is a banjo playing dixie song that kind of made me laugh and shake my head at the same time. There are a few other scenes like this that make you laugh when people are in grave danger, but that is the intent of the filmmakers and they did a good job with it. This movie is not for everyone, but if you like a good dark comedy or horror picture then you may want to rent or even buy this one with all the added features they added with it. You may surprise yourself and actually enjoy it like I did.
Video: How does it look?
This is a very good transfer even though it is not 16:9 enhanced. The colors in the night scenes and day scenes are very clean and sharp. I didn’t see anything negative about the video transfer.
Audio: How does it sound?
This is also a pretty good sounding DVD. The choice of music was weird at times, but seemed to match the mood the film makers were looking for. This movie gives you a broad forward sound stage while the surround channels give you more of an atmospheric sound to the film and the subwoofer was rarely used.
Supplements: What are the extras?
This movie has it all. It gives you three audio commentaries, deleted scenes with or without commentary, a theatrical trailer, a TV spot, movie stills gallery, costume and set designs.
