Opening in limited release Friday, October 23
Cast:
Eion Bailey as Nick
Yvonne Strahovski as Lori
Will Patton as Henry
Directed by: Richard Harrah
Review:
The Canyon is not a horror movie. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but knowing that might alter your expectations a little. I sat and waited for something, well, horrific to happen. It turned out to be a long wait. Eventually there are a few intense and unsettling moments, but the movie is best described as survival thriller. There is definitely more of the former and less of the latter.
Fight Club‘s Eion Bailey and Chuck‘s Yvonne Strahovski star as newlyweds Nick and Lori. Residents of Chicago, they have just eloped in Vegas and are on a little honeymoon near the Grand Canyon. Shacked up in a motel, they plan on taking a mule ride into the canyon. Lori would prefer to stay shacked up, but Nick has his mind set on some adventure. Though they encounter a brief permit problem, town drunk/philosopher Henry (Will Patton) takes care of it and offers his guide services.
The excursion gets off to a good start. The scenery is breathtaking and Henry appears to be a more than serviceable guide. But an incident with a rattlesnake leads to the loss of two mules and a serious medical problem. Of course there is no cell phone service deep in the Grand Canyon, and it looks like the adventurers may be a bit lost. Things go from bad to worse from there, with a pack of hungry wolves adding insult to injury.
Pacing and atmosphere are the main issues plaguing The Canyon. It drags for quite some time before anything interesting happens, and even then it isn’t anything you wouldn’t immediately expect from a movie like this. There aren’t any surprises here. As previously mentioned, there are some powerful moments late in the game, but by then it is too little, too late. It perks you up but can’t entirely redeem the movie. At least ten minutes should have been trimmed to establish better pacing.
Unfortunately the canyon itself isn’t ideally utilized either. Director Richard Harrah effectively captures the awe-inducing beauty of it, but he never builds any sense of dread or efficiently portrays the oppressive isolation one would feel in that kind of situation. Obviously being stranded in the Grand Canyon would be a terrifying ordeal, but its vastness is not fully exploited.
While Bailey and Strahovski are a believable couple and give excellent performances, Nick and Lori are far from fully developed characters. We get small tidbits of background information, like the fact that he will reluctantly work for her father back in Chicago, but little else. It is difficult to care about their predicament since we don’t know them.
The conclusion will feel familiar to those who saw one of last year’s best horror offerings, which fairly or not lessens its impact. The Canyon is handsomely shot, features solid effects work and makes you squirm once or twice. Mostly, though, it is dull and overly familiar.
