Getting married takes a lot of guts. I know first hand. I’m one of the many who have taken the plunge and have been happily married for almost four years. The old cliché goes that when you go on your honeymoon, you should do something that you will both remember and enjoy. For my wife and me, it was a two-week trip of theme-park-hopping in Orlando Florida. We had a good time (with only one minor fight during the trip). In most relationships, that is normal. However, you hear stories of honeymoon nightmares: Ones where the airline loses the luggage or someone goes for a dive off a cruise ship.
In the case of this film, The Canyon, a newlywed couple decides to hire a guide to take them on a tour though the Grand Canyon. However, as fate would have it, their guide is bitten in the face by a rattlesnake and takes a trip to the Pearly Gates, leaving the couple in the middle of the canyon with no food or shelter, and without a map to help them get out of the canyon. What follows next is a series of unfortunate events that will test the newlyweds’ marriage right from the start. An unfortunate accident involving rock climbing forces Lori (Yvonne Strahovski) to have to care for her husband, Nick, when he breaks his leg. As the pair fights for survival, a pack of wolves is hot on their trail looking to make a meal out of the young couple. The story becomes a wild ride of survival though the Grand Canyon where, at every turn, danger is lurking for the young couple to become the next victims of the canyon.
At first glance of the film, I really felt it is was going to be another cliché survival film. The script starts with some corny dialogue and starts off a bit slow, but as the story progresses, you come to know the film’s main characters not by the individuals they are, but by the kind of couple they are. As the film moves on and the action gets moving, you really see how this couple comes together and tries to survive this crisis.
The film has decent production value. We know that the film was for the most part shot on location and that it did not really need to be dressed up considering it took place in the Grand Canyon. The acting in the film is nothing great, but it works. I cannot say that the performances are perfect, but the actors play their parts well.
Real horror films don’t always have to be about things that go bump in the night and ghosts, goblins and ghouls attacking the group of teenagers. That can be a lot of fun, but real horror films, in my opinion, involve stories that could become reality. Such is the case with this film. It could have had the cliché happy conclusion and the predicable happy story that we are all so used to in a film. However, this film is real and it does not hold back from being so. It’s not the greatest film, but it’s got a story that will make you think twice before you go on a dangerous adventure unprepared. Well worth checking out.
– Horror Bob
- Interview with J.R. Bookwalter - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Andrew J. Rausch - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Rick Popko and Dan West - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Director Stevan Mena (Malevolence) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Screenwriter Jeffery Reddick (Day of the Dead 2007) - January 22, 2015
- Teleconference interview with Mick Garris (Masters of Horror) - January 22, 2015
- A Day at the Morgue with Corri English (Unrest) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Writer/Director Nacho Cerda (The Abandoned, Aftermath) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Actress Thora Birch (Dark Corners, The Hole, American Beauty) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Actor Jason Behr, Plus Skinwalkers Press Coverage - January 22, 2015
