Pretty Good

Good movie but grossly overrated

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

'Dead Mountaineer's Hotel' still remains basically only Estonian science fiction film in the truest sense. Police inspector arrives into remote mountain hotel to investigate anonymous tip where he discovers that it was false alarm. After the avalanche cuts the hotel, and all it's inhabitants from the outer world, the strange things start to occur. Doppelgangers, terrorists, aliens, androids, and flirtatious sultry women.Wonderful cinematography of snowy mountains under bright sun against dark interior of the hotel that leaves feeling that it's as cold inside the hotel as it is outside, and intensifies the claustrophobic atmosphere of the hotel. Inspector Glebsky grows more and more desperate and paranoid when he tries to solve the crimes only relying on his common sense, logic and skepticism that lead to unfortunate tragic events leaving audience falter who was the real villain. The name of the hotel 'Dead Mountaineer' is explained briefly (and quite satisfactory), but it also leaves nice eerie mystery floating around - who was that enigmatic 'dead mountaineer' whose dog still sleeps under his bleak portrait hanging on the wall. Sven Grünberg's fantastic synthesizer score adds another layer of mystery and anticipation. The song 'Ball' has a lyrics, but they don't make sense because it's only gibberish - and when we see aliens dance to this song hypnotically it's almost like they understand it (although real reason why the song didn't had any proper words was the Soviet regulation of the time demanding the lyrics of the song to be translated into Russian when released in Russia - Grünberg didn't like the idea of translating his lyrics so he invented the gibberish for the song.).

All the commenters whining about this... what the hell is wrong with you people? Do you think Star Wars is proper sci-fi? I mean all the things described by peter-kuus as poor I find utterly brilliant - they add to the movie, instead taking from it. The surreal dark scenes of the interior of the hotel, those long bright direct sun shots and icy mountains are totally ethereal. PLUS the music - one should watch it because of the music alone. Droning, theremin-like synths with visuals of icy scapes, what more could you want?Shouldn't be compared to your run of the mill sci-fi or action-plot movies...

I like quite a lot the book which movie is based on, one of Strugatski's best (it's a bit too short tho). Strugatski's wrote also movie script, but it's much weaker. Some details are changed, some left out, and the changes just don't make much sense. Any way, even if I don't like movie much, most of the cast is good, and helps visualizing characters when reading the book. Maybe except Mrs. Moses... and du Barnstocre who simply isn't in movie. Glebsky also looks a bit fake at times, partly maybe because of dubbed voice. Also, was it that hard to make something that looks like alien robot power source, so they could actually show it? That and some other scenes look quite cheap...

Film is based on the novel by Strugatsky brothers. Police inspector is called to a mountain hotel, but there's no crime. When snow avalanche blocks hotel from the rest of the world, strange things start to happen.. Brilliant soundtrack from Sven Grünberg.