TERROR
2023 · 11m · United Kingdom
Directed by Giles Buchanan
Genres: horror, mystery, thriller
Tones: contemplative, dark, surreal
A man returns from a mountain climbing expedition under suspicion after his climbing partner died mysteriously, haunted by whatever happened on the mountain.
Picked by Zoe
The scouts
Standard unreliable-narrator guilt trip dressed up in mountain dread—the premise wants to be subversive but just retreads every other 'what really happened' thriller. If Buchanan had committed to the surreal tone as the actual landscape of the film instead of window dressing, maybe there'd be something here.
Buchanan's control of tone and spatial composition shows real formal awareness, situating the film within a lineage of psychological horror that values atmosphere over exposition. The restraint in not explaining the mystery is the work of a director conscious of what unsaid images can do.
The decision to let the mountain itself become untethered—to blur what's memory, trauma, and landscape hallucination—lives or dies on a single editing rhythm in the final act, and Buchanan nails it, turning 11 minutes into something that feels much larger through pure structural precision.
Reviews
Marvelously directed by Giles Buchanan and boasting absolutely gorgeous cinematography, this Lovecraftian chiller does an outstanding job of revealing just enough to allow viewers' imaginations to fill in the dread-drenched gaps.