Mount Skylight Film Review

Genre
Thriller

Studio
Wild Lion Productions

Starring
Morgan Flanagan, Brendan Gaffey, Matthew Sharpe, Madison Tolley, Tory Key

Directed By
Taylor McNelis

Written By
Taylor McNelis & Tristan Schuler

Produced By
Ryan Cudahy

As a seasoned music critic and dare I say (dare, dare) a human critic as a stand up comic making my transition into film critiques couldn't have lined up better for my first piece. I originally met this cast at a hotel wrap party after going to school with some but not knowing most of them. You could not tell the difference. My role in this while small doing some set photography had me fooled. The embrace of these players towards there characters seemed just as natural as our first interaction offset.

The film begins with a situation you automatically have to use imagination for, a forgotten remedy in the twitter blitz of the 2010's you use in cinema especially, post-apocalyptic adaptation. The characters are in search of answers. Upon arrival at a broken down, abandoned house, the group of young men and women discover (and don't) they might be more alone than anticipated. An iPhone is discovered showing a visibly petrified man (Tory Key) appearing to be petrified at something. The video then cuts off. The more they search for answers, soon they are at the brink of panic. Somehow, the grit sides with & they seize control of themselves before leaving the house, but with not much clarity to show for it.

The story soon turns to survival at maybe the only predictable part of the movie. After leaving the house, the plan is shaped to search for anyone or anything. The kids one by one face a certain fate in the empty town (all respect to basically my hometown, Stanardsville) but is it just a horror tale we are about to be a part of? As a person is left behind one by one throughout, you might sense no more than this is Zombieland coming with the dramatics. The team on this searched for a relatable way for fans and moviegoers to understand a prominent issue in every generation, substance abuse. This worked.

Under the direction and production of Taylor Mcnelis
Tristan Schuler & Ryan Cudahy , you are hard pressed to find not just more genuine writing but thought put into it, respectfully. The remarkable job of tying the emptiness, the cries we cannot make but start with only an "I need help" in the personal hell of those struggles I left the theater feeling. This is a picture poised for more while an impressive short story beginning at this stage. This of course is this writer's opinion.

Wildcard Entertainment 2020