Downhill (2016)
Patricio Valladares’s last film to screen at Frightfest wasn’t a popular one, Kim Newman claimed it to be one of the three or four worst films ever screened at Frightfest. History seemed to have repeated itself with Downhill where a joke about the film’s title would be far too easy
A retired biker comes out of retirement (he retired because of the death of his friend in a biking accident, a strange reason to retire for something that was always going to be possibility) to race in Chile where a great sponsorship deal beckons. Before the race Joe (Byrce Dapper) and his girlfriend (Natalie Burn) go up for a bike ride in the mountain’s where they stumble across a man who seems to be infected by something. Upon finding this man they are soon attacked by a gang of thugs desperate to keep their secret hidden.
In the Q and A one of the film’s writers claimed that they just had a load of ideas that were shoved into the blender, which comes to no surprise at Downhill is a mess of film, albeit one that’s enjoyable in places. There are a number of things wrong with the film, firstly the opening scene, where the friend has the accident, is pointless as is the sex scene between Joe and his friend’s girlfriend (which was never mentioned or even built upon) and there’s various parts of the story unexplained – what was the infection? who was the cult? We’re also left with the lasting impression that Natalie Burn has a nice arse and great body as director Patricio Valladares seemed to be obsessed with filming her in an objective way (something he’s had a history of doing).
