Snow Falls – Film Review

A New Year’s Eve party quickly turns serious when a brutal winter storm strands five friends at a remote cabin. Convinced that the snowflakes have infected them with a deadly virus, they struggle to stay awake to avoid freezing to death.

If I’m going to be one hundred percent completely honest with you – I thought that Colton Tran‘s Snow Falls was going to be a whole lot worse than it actually was. It’s one of those straight-to-video releases that gets absolutely no marketing push, is barely even an hour and a half long, and has a supremely silly premise.

But much to my surprise, this film wasn’t all that awful. I still wouldn’t quite call it a good movie, but I was legitimately surprised by just how competently filmed it all was, and how much of the tension I felt during certain scenes. Whenever a character underwent some extreme paranoia, not only did I feel for them, but I also felt a twinge of paranoia.

The main mystery of the movie revolves around whether or not this snowfall outside the lead characters’ cabin is actually evil or if they’re just losing their minds as a result of being so unbearably cold. The film definitely gives you a clear answer, and it’s quite enjoyable.

For me the biggest problem with Snow Falls was the pacing. Despite being only an hour and twenty minutes long including credits, it still felt like it dragged on considerably, but most notably, the first act. It doesn’t really feel like a horror movie, even. It just sort of feels like one of those cheesy 80s rom-coms, strangely.

Whenever our lead band of characters are holed up inside of the cabin and they start to see some bizarre things is when the film seriously picks up steam. The only problem is that it happens far too late into the movie to get completely sucked into the plot and the mystery.

That, plus, not all of the performances were great. A few of the standouts here, however, were easily Anna Grace Barlow, Jonathan Bennett, and Johnny Berchtold. They were definitely the actors that understood the assignment the most and they managed to bring a certain sense of tension that wouldn’t have been there otherwise.

This movie is all just fairly forgettable, unfortunately. While the second and third acts pick up steam and get the ball rolling, it’s far too late for any of us to get truly sucked in. Plus, there’s really nothing all that memorable about the movie – not even the horror elements introduced in the end. But, what I will say is that I am curious to see what Colton Tran does next because he clearly has some talent.

Snow Falls has some surprising moments of tension during its conclusion, but it’s an otherwise forgettable psychological horror that doesn’t dare to try anything new.