Vertige (2009) Reviews

• Unwatchable dreck

  baba447132009-12-28

  When I heard about some french horror situated in Croatia, I was overjoyed. Beautiful Croatian scenery combined with exciting climbing scenes coupled with a classic slasher plot line.. perfect movie for the Sunday night. Boy, was I wrong. First of all, yes, I knew beforehand that the movie was an utter ripoff of Descent/Wrong Turn. However I like both of those movies and am not necessarily against ripping off if it is done well - after all, it's hard to film a slasher flick and be original. Unfortunately, Vertige does it anything BUT well. Right off the bat, we are introduced to the most unlikeable bunch of future cannon fodder you have ever seen. It doesn't help that they are as one-dimensional as possible - you have a "climber", "climber's girlfriend", a girl who is a "doctor", "doctor's hunky ex-boyfriend" and "doctor's current vertigo-ridden boyfriend". This is as far as the movie goes with characterizations. Oh, and I forgot, they are also utter morons with a survival instinct of a lobotomized dodo. It also doesn't help that the actors portraying those characters, are, well, let's say that they should perhaps try to find some other ventures in the future. Especially the vertigo guy who constantly mixes "being scared" expression with the "heavily constipated" one. After realizing that, barring some miracle, I'm stuck with these folks for an hour and a half, I at least settled in the notion that I will be looking at some nice Risnjak scenery. Tough luck - whoever made this flick probably chose "Croatia" and "Risnjak" purely because they sound sorta exotic - the scenery doesn't look anything like Croatia's National Park of the same name - strike two. But there's the plot, right? *Sigh*. Our gang decides to go via some "closed down" route with the "longest footbridge in Europe". By the way, Croatians have built this longest footbridge as a part of the route that goes absolutely nowhere. This is a plot point. Once they cross the footbridge, it falls apart despite being clearly shown as made from shiny new parts and having at least five redundant safety wires. Well, that's Croatians for you, not only do they build Europe's longest footbridges to nowhere, they also create bridge support points out of legos and spit. This is the first half of the movie, with the thrills mostly having to do with the oh-so-irritating vertigo guy hyperventilating and falling over ledges (remember, legos and spit). The second half introduces some insane Croat called Anton Zukarech (which sounds as Croatian as "John Wayne", but I digress). This guy starts killing the poor French idiots, because, uh, well, just because. And it's hard NOT to root for him because our hikers do all but tattoo "cut here" lines on their necks and bicker about who gets to bite the dust first. The rest of the movie is mostly listening to groans and screams, watching our heroes acting like idiots some more for the plot to plod forward, witnessing painfully obvious continuity mistakes (trivia fact: in Croatia it takes ten minutes to go from midnight to high noon) and God is this movie ever going to end.. Anton, man, what's taking you so long? After the last scene (groan), cue the final insult - the director chose to inform us that there are "3270 unexplained disappearances in the Balkans". I don't even have to check for the fact that this talentless hack pulled this number out of his ass, mostly because "Balkans" is probably the hardest geographical region to define and would hardly be used in any statistics. I guess he didn't want to anger the Croats too much and blatantly fabricate some statistical data about imaginary disappearances in Croatia itself. Too late, he already angered not just Croats but everyone else duped into seeing this dreck. I have utterly disliked this movie. There are no scares, no thrills, there is some gore if you are into that sort of thing, but most of the time the movie is nearly unwatchable. The protagonists are paper-thin characters who are so unbelievably irritating you are actively rooting for Anton to put them out of their misery, which cannot happen soon enough. Seriously, seeing this movie through in one sitting is an exercise in masochism. I give it a 2/10, mostly because it's short and some of the scenery is nice (although it's not Croatia but French Alps). But you are SO better off watching Descent or Wrong Turn instead. Or any other American slasher B-movie for that matter. P.S. In the last five years, 1,457 French doctors had random flashbacks that have had nothing to do with anything whatsoever.

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• Enjoyable!

  Siamois2009-11-30

  Another reviewer compared Vertige to Deliverance but nothing could be further from the truth. Deliverance is a dark drama reflecting on civilization and nature. Vertige is a more conventional action horror movie that has more in common with The Hills Have Eyes, Wrong Turn and The Descent. Like the latter, Vertige is divided roughly in two parts. In the first part, we are introduced to a group of young, outdoor-loving people following a challenging mountain trail. This is where we as the viewers are introduced to this group's different character dynamics and relationships. Many scenes in the first half are rather interesting, sometimes thrilling and even downright spectacular. It's no stretch to say the film truly earned its title (Vertige, vertigo) here. All the tension is created by the various passive obstacles our group face, much like the Descent. In the second half, things turn for the worse. As the threat takes the form of an intelligent, active villain hunting down the group, trying to pick them apart. Unfortunately, this villain is rather weakly sketched and poorly played. It also seems like the producers ran out of budget. Where the climbing scenes were breathtaking in the first part, the fight scenes and chasing in the last part are uninspired and bland. I kept expecting all the challenging background in the first hour to resurface one way or another in the latter stage of the movie but it never happened. You're just left with an almost standard slasher movie. A poor take on Chainsaw Massacre and so on... I'm giving this movie a 5 because it has an interesting premise and some great early scenes but the rest really disappoints. If you're a big fan of the movies I mentioned above, this might be worth a rental. If you hate that kind of stuff, you might be better off passing on this. PS: In the genres listed, horror should definitely be added as it has all the tropes found in stuff like Wrong Turn, Chainsaw Masssacre, etc...

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• Wrong turn in the mountains

  dschmeding2009-12-13

  The basic plot of Vertige is pretty lame and worn off considering that we are talking about a group of five mountain climbers who take an adventurous hike on a mountain path that goes overboard and turns into a fight for survival. Its like Wrong Turn if you replace the woods with mountains. At first you think it could go a different direction because the first half works pretty well as a kind of adventure movie with mountain climbers. You get some pretty impressive climbing sequences with lines snapping and nice action mixed with beautiful landscape shots and some nice camera-work... as well as a pretty hot female lead actress (although she chose a pretty strange dress for that trip that gives the viewer some pretty nice views of her mountains too). As soon as the movie turns to be a survival horror with some mountain hillbilly maniac who hunts climbers it goes overboard. There is no resolution of the obscure guy hunting the climbers and the flashback sequences about some mishappenings in the life of the female lead who seems to be a doctor are pretty meaningless and cheap. Vertige is a typical style over substance movie with a giant letdown in the end and a plot that is as paper thin as the clichéd character development. Anyone who has high hopes for another great french horror movie should stay away from this. The action sequences are really good but i doubt thats enough for a feature movie. first turns out closed and on further investigation becomes quite stressful when bridges break and cables burst.

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• Breathless Beginning and Unoriginal Development and Conclusion

  claudio_carvalho2009-12-28

  The teenagers Fred (Nicolas Giraud), his girlfriend Karine (Maud Wyler) and their friends Chloe (Fanny Valette), William (Raphaël Lenglet) e Luke (Johan Libéreau) travel to Croatia to climb and hike along the day. They find the starting point closed with rocks but the experienced climber Fred convinces the others, including the coward Luke that has a crush on Chloe and wants to be close to her, to cross the tract climbing the mountain. Along their journey, they realize that the trail is more dangerous than they thought: the rope bridge collapses after their crossing and the handle in the mountain is busted. Fred climbs with Karine to help their friends but he is wounded in a bear trap. Karine uses a rope to bring their friends to the top, but they do not find Fred that has disappeared. When Chloe falls in a hole with a trap, they question what do people hunt in that isolated spot. When they discover the truth, their entertainment turns into a fight to survive. "Vertige" has a breathless beginning with the adventure of the group of five friends in the Balkans. In the first half of this movie, the plot is very tense and I do not know how far the actors and actresses have climbed or crossed the rope bridge in times of CGI, but the result is effective with excellent scenes and camera work and I was nervous with the situation of the poor guys. Unfortunately the second part of the story is a violent collection of clichés "à la The Texas Chainsaw Massacre" and many other sub-products of the slash genre. Luke is an annoying character and the final decision of Chloe with the fate of Anton is simply ridiculous. My vote is six. Title (Brazil): "Vertigem" ("Vertigo")

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• An excellent first half of suspense/drama before turning into a cruddy horror film

  quinnox-12011-05-15

  For the first half of the movie it was an interesting and good suspense story, about a group of carefree youthful friends who go on a mountain climbing adventure, and the obstacles they encounter on their more perilous than anticipated day trip. Disregarding that the route they want to climb is closed, they boldly and perhaps foolishly, go on and start their climb. This is where the movie is well done, with breathtaking and scary camera shots of the ground far below as they make their way across thin precarious ledges on the mountainside and the sense of danger is prominent and sustained, until finally they end up at a rickety and dangerous looking rope bridge they must cross. All this is interesting to watch, especially for those who like outdoors adventures, added to this is a character who is more timid than the others in the group and is scared of heights, who has troubles navigating these perils which adds more tension to these scenes. However, after they cross the rope bridge, which ends up being a thrilling and tense scene, the movie turns into a stupid generic horror film of a backwoods crazed maniac who lives on the mountain and he begins to hunt them down. The killer is not scary at all, and played by a guy who looks like some goof ball lumberjack and its quite disappointing when he is revealed. The characters also start to make really dumb decisions as is typical in horror movies, and basically the entire second half of the movie is a total dud, and can be skipped without missing anything good. So I think this movie is actually worth seeing for the first half alone, which was surprisingly gripping when it involved the human drama of navigating a difficult mountain climb.

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