The Donner Party (2009)

The Donner Party
2009
Drama
Crispin Glover, Alison Haislip

I know this is why you guys come to this blog, to read me ramble on about movies you never heard of and will probably never see, okay actually I know that's not true at all, but this is one of those times. I doubt many of you heard about The Donner Party (the movie, not the actual party) until right now. In real life the Donner party was an infamou group of pioneers traveling to California in the winter of 1846-47 who become stranded by a snowstorm in the Sierra Nevada mountains, and who are then forced to resort to cannibalism to stay alive. In this movie we follow a small group of that party, none with the last name Donner, as they deal with being stuck in the frozen Sierra Nevada mountains with no food.

I only saw this movie because Alison Haislip is in it. For those who don't know who Alison Haislip is she is one the hosts of the TV show "Attack of the Show" on G4. It is basically a news show about video games, comic books, movies, and TV with a bunch of random jokes and skits thrown in for good measure. I personally love the show, so I rented The Donner Party to support Alison Haislip as an actress.

Sadly, this movie was pretty boring. I guess being starving and freezing really doesn't leave the oppurtunity for much to happen between the characters. The characters are either just sitting around in snow, walking around in snow, or sitting around in snow eating a body part of somebody they had to kill. I realize that they have no food the entire time but it seems like they go from eating the last of their food to eating one of their friends pretty quickly. There wasn't enough debating on whether that was really the best course of action to take.

Crispin Glover is the biggest name actor in the movie. He really did a great job playing the religious but selfish father figure from the one family. He is pretty well known as being a rather crazy person in real life who really becomes the character so I really wonder what he was like on the set of a movie about cannibalism. In case you were wondering, Alison Haislip did a fine job, but she only had like 5 lines so she really didn't get a chance to show off her acting chops. Half the time there is no soundtrack, and what is there is very miminalist. I have a feeling this was done on purpose, but I think a little more obtruse soundtrack could have improved things a little. I don't know where they actually filmed this movie, but I would be remissed if I did not mention how beautiful the scenery is. Though it would probably seem a lot less pretty if I was starving to death in it.

There is really no need to see this movie unless, you are a big Crispin Glover fan (or Alison Haislip fan like me) or interested in the Donner Party from a historical perspective. You won't be missing out on much if you don't see it.

2 out of 5 Stars

Read more about what actually happened to the real life Donner Party (it's quite interesting) at wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donner_Party
.