USA, 2005
Review:
JA Kerswell
THE RIDGE is very much a film of two halves. Its talky first 40 minutes might test the patience of some, but those with stamina will be rewarded by taut, suspenseful suspense action that belies - and often overcomes - its microbudget roots. In a tale as old as time, a group of twenty-somethings head to a remote house for the weekend and find themselves under attack from a hooded assailant with an axe. Largely overlooked on its release, this slasher/home invasion hybrid is worth rediscovering.
Squabbling brothers Noah (Neal Bledsoe) and Blake (director Brett Haley) invite Noah’s girlfriend Anna (Lauren Powell) and her friend Cara (Lydia Hyslop) to their parent’s remote forest home for a winter weekend getaway. Also along for the ride is their jock friend Ethan (Jesse Patch). The group are at first perplexed and then annoyed to find the house in disarray and left in a mess by the previous guest. Blake’s awkwardness is further compounded by an emerging romantic entanglement between his ex-Cara and Ethan. To take their minds off things, they retell the legend of the Ridge Runner - a mountain man who killed families who settled on his remote land - where their house was built - many years before.
The group jokily dismiss the tale as an urban legend until they discover that the last guest never checked out when they find his body at the bottom of a pool. With help from the authorities taking time to reach them, they also discover that the Ridge Runner is no urban legend after all …
Admittedly, THE RIDGE suffers from many of the issues slasher films at this budget do. The sound is sometimes muffled, with dialogue sometimes initially obscured by bland indie guitar fluff. The print is also at times overly dark - something not necessarily helped given that the last half of the movie takes place after a power cut. However, the genre turns on a dime when the Ridge Runner appears. Despite its visual shortcomings - not helped by the fact that the only available print cropped the film from 2.35 : 1 to a square 4:3 ratio - the film is something of a masterclass in how to do a slasher film on a tiny budget.
It is little surprise that Brett Haley went on to a successful career in directing and screenwriting. In some ways, the deliberately slow, low-fi slacker build-up at least gives us characters we are partially invested in instead of the often usual slasher movie cyphers. Whilst the setup of THE RIDGE is hardly original it excels elsewhere. The Ridge Runner in his Executioner’s Hood - lives up to his name as he is always running - is genuinely a threatening and lethally athletic presence. Haley displays a knack for visual trickery on a low budget (reportedly just $2,400) - from impressive overhead shots in the woods to a great sequence where one character witnesses the murder of another through a hole in the door left by the killer’s axe. Even despite the technical shortcomings, Haley delivers a sustained and often exhilarating slasher movie ride - with the characters in a breakneck game of cat and mouse with the killer accompanied by an effective, elevated heartbeat on the soundtrack. The movie even throws in a little twist in the closing act that upends a well-trodden slasher movie convention.
Given how good the last half of THE RIDGE is I can only wonder how much better it could have been without those technical and budgetary limitations. An opening kill or prologue showing the origin of the Ridge Runner wouldn’t have gone amiss, either. Still, it is well worth rediscovering for slasher fans who are willing to look beyond those limitations and let’s hope for a better release down the line.
BODY COUNT 6:
Female 2 / Male 4
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