Donner Pass



Kayley, Nicole, Mike and their new friend Thomas are headed up to Donner Pass, a place with a tragic past and where rumors still persist to this day of ghosts and man-eating madmen lurking somewhere in the woods. But the kids don’t care about history or silly rumors. Nor do they care about that local guy on the loose who supposedly just brutally killed his girlfriend. Nope. They just intend on doing some partying and skiing for the weekend. The only caveat is that they’re staying at Thomas’ parent’s home for their little winter getaway, and mom and dad don’t know they’re there. So they have to be discreet with their little shindig.

Except it seems that nobody bothered to tell Nicole that. Or, rather, nobody bothered to tell her boyfriend that. Because he shows up not too long after they arrive with a truck full of rowdy friends and a stockpile of beer. Gee. Thanks, Nicole. The original group tries to make the best of it. Especially when they end up snowed in the very same night they arrive. But it doesn’t take long for things to go even further downhill, as members of their group suddenly start to go missing and turn up dead, their bodies partially mutilated. Suggesting that perhaps those rumors of madmen and ghosts weren’t so wrong after all.



Donner Pass is an American low-budget slasher/horror film from 2011 that is, at least partially, based on the real-life story of The Donner Party, a group of American pioneers who were trapped in the Sierra Nevada mountains in the winter of 1846-47, and notoriously had to resort to cannibalism in order to stay alive. It’s a tragic tale that is both well known and well documented. If you have no idea what I’m talking about, you can go watch the very well done PBS documentary if you want to see something that will go into greater detail about the whole sad ordeal. But for the sake of this movie all you really need to know is that human flesh was consumed during the event. Because beyond that the movie makes up its own supernatural story about what happened and turns it into a slasher that almost works if not for its crappy characters and horrendous pacing issues.


Chick on the left got so bored she stopped paying attention.

Okay, so, I don’t know if I should spoil it or not, (but I guess I’m going to anyway,) but this is basically a Wendigo story. Now there’s no deer iconography, or antlers, or anything like that. And the movie never comes right out and says that it’s a Wendigo story, of course. Never once even uses that word. But the gist of the story is that the woods are cursed and when someone (or at least certain people) ate human flesh they would be overcome with an insatiable hunger to have more, and they would kill people to get it, etc., etc., and…Yeah, this is clearly a Wendigo in everything but name…just with a much more confusing rule set.



Meaning that one of the major dings against the movie is that they don’t seem to have gotten all of their internal logic ironed out. Because it’s not very clear how this ‘curse’ is really supposed to function or transfer. I mean, they do eventually kinda tell you how at the end, but that info sort of contradicts itself based on what happened earlier in the movie. Because you get a whole flashback to see what (supposedly happened) to the Donner Party, and shows that one guy was clearly infected, presumably by eating human flesh. Okay. Cool. I’m following so far. But that flashback also indicates that others in the group had already started eating human flesh well before that point with no similar ill effects. So…if other people beyond that one guy were already eating human flesh, then why weren’t they affected in the same way that the one guy was? The Answer? Don’t know, as that’s never explained.


Also never explained, is how nobody could hear that guy back there crawling around in the snow.

Even more confusing? Later we see people get ‘infected’ by the curse, simply by getting blood in their mouths. Not the blood of the Wendigo, mind you (though apparently that works too). Just some random character’s blood that’s dropped into their mouths. Apparently that alone is enough to trigger the curse, because those people never actually ate any human flesh. Which begs the question: If that’s all it takes, then how much blood does one need to consume for this curse to kick in? Does it need to be a lot, or just a couple drops? And does it only work if you eat someone else’s blood, or will your own work just as well? Like, if you get a paper cut on your finger and instinctually put it in your mouth before washing it off, is that going to turn you into a Wendigo, or… What? I feel like these are important distinctions that need to be addressed. Because I don’t know about you, but the lack of clarity and consistency makes me very confused about how any of this is supposed to work.



But the main issue I had with the movie, is that it’s another one of those horror films with a painfully slow start that is simply chock full of absolutely loathsome people. Seriously, you will legitimately hate them the second they arrive. The movie doesn’t even attempt to make them likable. And I know it’s standard practice to have that particular character type in every horror film, just so that the audience can celebrate their inevitable grisly demise. But…good gods, this is too much. The movie already started off with two annoying people in the original group of four. They did not need to add four more to the pile and make the cast 3/4th Asshat. That is WAY too much Asshat. Then they add in some backstory between two of the more obnoxious characters of the group to give them an excuse to make them even MORE evil and… You know what, at this point I can’t even celebrate their deaths. I just want them all to go away, so that I don’t have to look at these horrible, drunken fools who are (supposedly) supposed to be teenagers, but who are clearly in their 20s, ever again. Thank goodness they at least made the lead decent, or I might have turned the movie off.



And of course compounding this issue, is the fact that the pacing of the first half of the film feels absolutely atrocious. The first few minutes with the ‘flashback’ (which even the movie calls out for being false) are okay. But after that it’s a slow trek up the mountain (over the opening credits), a little light dining because they needed to stop for a snack, then a bit more mountain. They don’t get to the “cool, nice house” bit until a full 20 minutes of the film. Twenty minutes! There’s no way any of that needed to take up 20 minutes.


“Where’s the Butler?” he exclaims, in a house that is seemingly using blankets for curtains.

And then we barely get a breather from all THAT excitement before the truck full of Asshats show up and you’re forced to deal with their shenanigans for 15 more minutes, like some sort of soul-sucking buzzkill. They’re so obnoxious that you can’t even revel in the one death that does happen during that time. Granted, that’s also partially because it happens so quick, and the editing is so choppy, that you have no earthly idea what TF just happened. But I contend that the main issue is that it took WAY too long to get to that point. Most of those scenes could have easily been cut in half without losing any real content. But instead the movie doesn’t properly kick in until you’re a good 40+ minutes into it. Which, if you cut out the end credits (and how many of you honestly sit though those) is literally half of the movie.


What, you mean you DIDN’T want a whole scene with this loser? Whelp, too bad!

Thankfully though, the second half of Donner Pass ends up being fairly decent as far as low-budget slashers go. So even with the flaws I’d still consider the movie to be pretty watchable. Not great or anything. But most everything (acting, sound, visuals, ect.) makes it sufficient enough to put on in the background if you’re looking for something new to watch. Still though, that first half can be a bit of a slog. And it’s pretty annoying. So some people might be compelled to keep their finger on the fast-forward button. So unless you need a new winter-themed slasher or Wendigo film to watch, I think it’s safe to say that most horror fans can happily skip this.

Donner Pass is available on a variety of streaming services.

Donner Pass is also available on DVD.

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