★★★★
Directed by: #DanteAubain
Written by: #MallyCorrigan
Starring: #MallyCorrigan, #KatrinaDiehm, #AaronLattaMorissette, #JessieMac, #NiguelQuinn, #MichaelTaveira, #DanielVictor
The Alpines is a psychological thriller that follows seven friends coming together for a weekend getaway after several years of little to no contact. They've grown apart. They've moved on with their lives. But the secrets of their past have come back to haunt them. This time with a very real threat ready to expose every last one.
Opening sombre with a moody tone and the main lead, Zach (Aaron Latte-Morissette), The Alpines settles the viewer in for a physiologically charged experience. Shot in a confined location across 13 days with a small crew, this strangely inviting drama from Dante Aubain is the exhilarating flick I’ve been needing of late. The constantly escalating screenplay written by Mally Corrigan is playfully cliche but totally welcome in its execution. There’s a great sense of building tension from the first 20 minutes and then on from scene to scene, it never really lets up.
I was particularly impressed with the solid performances from the cast. Each character has their own traits and the actors play off these well. This is a surprisingly well-tackled ambient trill ride — the characters are developed well, using the seven sins as foundations for each. The cast is fantastic, with key scenes that grant them a chance to excel their performances and by the hour mark, you feel fairly attached to the interconnecting relationships and how certain characters interact around others.
Although I must say; just how big is this cabin? Towards the end, there are some intense, loud arguments and it’s like no one else even hears them. The drama is exciting, though. The climatic finale really kicks it up a notch and it’s quite a grim display of clashing evils. Not entirely satisfying but entertaining nonetheless; the ending brings it all together. There’s a spooky, eerie score (both library and additional by Sebastian Goodridge) that helps the mystery unfold throughout. Though the visuals can feel unloved at times, the cinematography is fairly great and captures the interiors of the cabin nicely and there are some lovely external location shots too.
One scene that jumped out to me was the campfire scene. There were some shining moments in the performances with some really intense dialogue, feeling like at any second someone could snap. I loved the conflicts featured in this film - if I were to take anything away from The Alpines, it’s the genuine care to keep a viewer invested in the unfolding drama. The team did a really good job of that.
The Alpines is the kind of film that you would see whilst scrolling through Netflix. The type of medium budget thriller that pulls you in and keeps you entertained until the end. It’s not perfect, but it’s a fun ride.
Watch the trailer for The Alpines below.
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