They don’t eat. They don’t sleep. They withstand bullets and grenades. They shake off explosions and great trauma. They sense carbon dioxide emissions and kill humans when they find them. They leave every other animal alone. They’re elephant-sized raging battle cats. And they eliminated 95% of the world population in one month. Not bad, eh? Or, you know, completely bad if you’re a human.
The Reapers do have one flaw: they don’t go above 8,000 ft Elevation. Why 8,000 and exactly 8,000? Nobody knows. If you live in Quito, you might have survived this mess. Most of the rest of us died three years ago. Elevation begins at the Lost Gulch refuge, 8,000 feet and change above sea level. Will (Anthony Mackie) and his son Hunter (Danny Boyd Jr.) are running out of supplies. Specifically, the kid needs oxygen; his stash is running low.
Well, gosh, there is oxygen in Boulder, Colorado. (Do states even matter at this point in history?) 
It’s 12 miles away, which doesn’t sound so bad. It’s also well below the Elevation threshold, which means all creature feast. Don’t worry, Wiil. You’ll be accompanied by Nina (Morena Baccarin) and Katie (Maddie Hasson), if they can just get along. Which they can’t.
You get the idea here: lethal, unkillable monsters will attack any human below the 8,000-foot Elevation threshold, and dad has to go into a dead city for supplies. So where did these things come from? And why do they only attack humans? Those are the wrong questions for a film like this, which clearly wants to be a franchise or at least a pilot.
The correct question is “Where are you going to place vulnerable humans so their peril will seem all the worse?” And the answer is: how about a hospital, or a
coal mine, or a ski lift. The lift made for some of the best moments in the film. Our trio has no ability to fight or escape the monsters on their territory, but the lift takes them above 8,000 feet if they can keep the Reapers at bay until then.
The mine was just silly. Mines aren’t made for transportation; you’re thinking of trains, So, why would one choose to go in the mine, voluntarily going below the 8,000 ft threshold, when you could just go over the mountain? That really doesn’t make sense in any other context than: This is a movie, and the premise of lethal monsters in the dark is far scarier than lethal monsters on a mountain in daylight.
I had several reasons to dislike Elevation, starting with the fact that you’ll never discover the origins of the creatures in the 91-minutes runtime. And yet, I kinda liked this film. The rules were present and sufficiently daunting. They were obeyed. The film didn’t stray from them. Good horror is about sticking to a daunting set of rules. If you present a lethal-enough challenge, it won’t matter that your heroes are blah, as they are here. Elevation didn’t quite raise movie making to higher ground, but it did lift my thumbs upward.
There was once a father named Will
In need of a medicinal refill
But his path to supplies
Was incurably unwise
Perhaps he just wanted a thrill
Rated R, 91 Minutes
Director: George Nolfi
Writer: John Glenn, Jacob Roman, Kenny Ryan
Genre: Our screwed future
Type of being most likely to enjoy this film: Monster movie fans
Type of being least likely to enjoy this film: Monsters
