Ordinarily, I can tolerate just about any movie at 2 in the morning. One night, however, my impressive endurance was tested, and I failed. I stumbled across a little cinematic gem known as "Kaaterskill Falls," and I would never be the same again.

First off, the script. This is undoubtedly the worst screen writing I have ever heard. You know all those stereotypes of indie film that we film buffs try so hard to shout down? Well, this movie is all of them. Every single one. Without fail. From the "detached, nature-beauty-loving" hitchhiker character with his cliché and artsily expressed hatred of cell phones to the "oh my god it's genius" twist ending (which, in itself, is the epitome of bad student film writing), the movie is painful.

When it first came on, the description read, "A hitchhiker terrorizes a couple in the mountains." This interested me, so I decided to watch. In the course of the movie, there was almost nothing the hitchhiker did that could be construed as "terrorizing." At most, he was mildly unsettling and generally dull.

In the end, I found this to be the worst movie I had ever seen, unseating "Valentine" and "Beyond the Valley of the Dolls." To date, this has not changed.

Have you ever watched a movie and thought "gee, I could do better than this". Well, this is one of those movies.

All involved in this farce should be ashamed of themselves. The acting is unspeakably bad, the editing would embarrass a high school film class and the plot is so ridiculous as to be hysterically funny.

I like independent films, but why is it so many of these movies insist on having actors respond to questions with long vacuous stares? It would have been nice to understand why Lyle was disaffected, or explore the relationship between Ren and Mitchell. Noooo, that would be work and why develop characters when you can use pregnant pauses for dramatic effect.

I know it takes all kinds, but if you are the type to enjoy this movie, you seriously need to get out more!!

This is not a gripping movie, but it has a believability to it that I find unique. Three quite ordinary people move through a weekend hiking in the country engaging in ordinary conversations and non-movielike dialogue. There are some cinematic techniques used seemingly to keep us more interested than we would be otherwise. It's good to hang in until the end because there are two unexpected and provocative twists that will make this movie stay with you and provide great grist for indie movie conversations. 6.5 out of 10.

This film is described as a thriller in the local newspaper ad, but in fact it is far from that. This moody picture directed by Josh Apter and Peter Olsen is much better than most of what the comments in this forum would lead a future viewer to believe. Sure, it's not for everybody and, yes, it is strange, but it will stay with you for a while.

The couple on the way to a week end cabin in upstate New York, near the Kaaterskill Falls is in serious trouble. Their relationship is nothing and never will amount to anything. Only after the mysterious hitchhiker enters their lives, that becomes apparent.

In retrospect, Ren and Lyle, the Manhattan couple would never pick up Mitch. There is something more to why they give them the ride and the way they let him stay with them. We realize who the strong one is and how this person manipulates the whole thing to an advantage. The last scene at the Kaaterskill Falls is executed brilliantly.

The three principals act naturally. Hillary Howard is perfect as Ren, the mousy wife. Mitchell Riggs as Mitch, the hitchhiker plays his part well and lastly, Anthony Leslie is fine as Lyle.

The score of the film is excellent.

Well, the scenery's nice. I live in New York City and I'm an avid hiker. I often go to the areas where Kaaterskill Falls was filmed, in and around the Catskill Mountains. The opening of the film has some nice cinematography of the roads in the area, and the final sequence has some nice cinematography of hiking areas.

That's surprising, because the cinematography in the rest of the film, as well as the dialogue, the majority of the performances, the story and so on all suck.

As many have noted, Kaaterskill Falls is something of a remake of Roman Polanski's 1962 film, Nóz w wodzie (Knife in the Water). I haven't seen the Polanski film yet, but I'd imagine that there has to be more to it than there is here.

Kaaterskill Falls is very easy to state in a nutshell, because a nutshell is all there is. A wife, Ren (Hilary Howard), and her husband, Stimpy--er, uh, Mitchell (Mitchell Riggs), are traveling to a cabin in the Catskills to make a baby. They see a hitchhiker, Lyle (Anthony Leslie), and Ren impulsively decides to pick him up. The guy says he can't find a place to stay. Stimpy impulsively decides to let him stay with them. Flirtations and jealousies ensue. They go out hiking together the next day. And you can fill in the last sentence.

One problem with Kaaterskill Falls is that it's one of far too many films made in the wake of The Blair Witch Project (1999) with the belief that merely having a camera and a couple warm bodies will produce a good film. I'm not much of a fan of The Blair Witch Project, and I wasn't much of a fan of the film that precipitated it, The Last Broadcast (1998). The Blair Witch Project has also spawned a festering mound of copycat crap, such as The Black Witch Project (2001), Back Woods (2001), and on and on. But it's not that I hate all films in that vein. Both Open Water (2003) and Incident at Loch Ness (2004) are masterpieces in my view, for instance.

But a good film requires technical competence and decent performances. Not every actor is skilled at improvisation. Even those skilled at it can't always be "on"--just look at the hit and miss nature of Christopher Guest's films. Directors Josh Apter and Peter Olsen have their cast improv most of Kaaterskill Falls, and the result is that 80% of the film is a trio of talking heads spouting banal nonsense. Worse, you can often transparently see the cast attempting to stretch or twist conversations around to just keep them going, to just say something. How about writing some plot next time, guys? There's a reason I don't routinely knock on the doors of Joe Schmoes begging to see their home videos from birthday parties.

Since a feature film currently needs to be about 90 minutes long, the "talking heads spouting banal nonsense in the cabin" segment goes on for about an hour. And when I say "talking heads", I'm being literal. I've only rarely seen directors more fond of close-ups. Apter and Olsen will routinely zoom in (often blurrily) to chins far enough that an actor's eyes are cut off. To make up for that, they'll next fill the screen with the actor's eyeball. Or nostril. Or cheekbone. During one five-minute segment of non-stop chatter between the three leads, they mostly leave the camera on Ren so that her whole face fills the screen. I guess Apter and Olsen went on a beer run. Even though there was often no plot, some medium and wide shots would have been nice to break up the monotony.

And it gets worse. They routinely use sound continuity that goes way against the grain of visual continuity in that they have an actor talking for a few moments while we're looking at that actor without his or her lips moving. It's like they're trying to create a stoner freak-out moment--one of those woozy, the-world-is-taffy brain-jams where everything starts going out of sync. What that has to do with the story or tone of the film, I don't know. Kaaterskill Falls isn't exactly Head (1968), or even the drug scene from Killing Zoe (1994). In the same vein, they repeatedly use "skip editing". That's where a cut goes from the actor talking to the same actor talking a few moments later, saying something a bit different, in a different position in the frame, etc.--the effect is like an LP record skipping. That's an interesting effect but an hour of it is too much.

Apter and Olsen also have a number of technical problems, such as sound and lighting. The opening scene has horrid sound, and they even note as much on the commentary track. Fellows, if you didn't fix the sound with your ADR, try it again, and remix it. Hire a competent sound engineer (I work at a reasonable rate, by the way) and do it again. Don't just release it even though it's crappy. The lighting during the night scene was also horrible. I know it's supposed to be dark, but the audience needs to see _something_.

The last half hour is "talking characters spouting banal nonsense on a hiking trail". This section is a bit better, but I think part of it was my attraction to the scenery. That shows just what a bad decision it was to leave the talking heads in a cabin with particleboard walls for an hour. There's also a smidgen of plot in the last section. Still, that was only good enough to bring my score back up to a 3.

The Blair Witch Project wasn't that great. It was a success because of the ingenious marketing campaign. Let's stop trying to copy its "formula" and get back to creating worthwhile artworks.

This flick is about a man and a woman who pick up a hitchhiker on their way to a cabin in the boonies for some R&R. What ensues is a whole lot of trivial conversation about linguini, fire building, cell phones, and blaa, blaa, blaa with the same three faces of which you -will- tire. In addition to the boooooring first hour or so, some of the time the camera shows the woman talking without moving her lips....ventriloquist or cinematic brain fart? "Kaaterskill Falls" smells like a no budget first outing indie...the kind of film where the purpose is not to entertain the masses but to show certain cinematic skills for academics, industry insiders, film pedants, etc. Pass on this dull flick which doesn't even begin to get interesting for an hour. The silly ending isn't worth the wait. (D)

This "film" was pure punishment. The actors had no charisma, no expression, no affect, no talent, no personality, and nothing really to say. God it was just awful. I love slow building character studies or thrillers, but this was just slow and b-o-r-i-n-g. Nothing realistic, nothing in the characters you could identify with. Did I mention it was boring.

The editing was amateurism and distracting. Having constant effects just to have an effect is not professional film making, just lazy and sloppy.

For the first 5 minutes, yes 5 minutes, there were the credits in a very pretentious manner with no other activity occurring except the driving of a car in the woods. There tells you need to know about the directors.

Stay away even if you can see it for free.

wow. this movie was about hour and a half and something ACTUALLY happened at the last 10 minutes for a few minutes. it wasn't anything too thrilling. i wouldn't recommend seeing it.nothing seemed important. i liked how there were shots that lasted for a few minutes, but it didn't seem like anything too important was happening. and i thought the camera shots were pretty cool too. kind of annoying after a while but it was different and i thought it was nice. but yeah, most of the "exciting" parts of the movie was at the last few minutes and the plot kinda twisted. i didn't know some things were gonna happen...well i was half asleep after the first hour trying to pay attention, although not much you needed to pay attention to while watching this video. the tension was building up in me for ever thinking something might happen. and i was expecting this in the first hour, but... that didn't happen, again, waited forever for something to occur. well, thats pretty much it. and the movie is not a thriller, don't think it's anything too exciting because it's not. just a head's up before you may see this movie. i just sat there wondering why i had waited and missed a few of my television shows. if you want to see it, then see it when nothing else is on because it may waste a few hours of your time.

What a sorry excuse for a movie this was. Fortunately for me I skipped renting this, thereby foregoing the rental fee, but watched it on cable instead.

It didn't make the experience any less excruciating though.

What we basically have is some sort of yuppie couple, ridiculously played by two untalented hacks who wouldn't know the word "act" even if they stumbled upon it, who make a retreat to the quiet digs of the mountains for a weekend of getaway fashion. Instead, they decide to pick up a mysterious hitch-hiker who barely says more than two words (and trust me, that's a blessing in disguise) and with him comes trouble.

There were various points throughout the film where I dozed off and managed to pick up where I had left off simply because the film hadn't made any sort of progress. The camera work was jerky, the soundtrack was flat and boring (if you get your joy from listening to a guitar strumming out the same notes repeatedly, then that's your deal) and the acting, laughable.

As for the "plot twist" where we find out who really killed the hitch hiker... were we not supposed to see that one coming? I also see that the budget of this film (approximately $10.00) skimped on the make-up and special effects as afterwards when the camera pans on the poor hitch-hiker after he "falls" to his death on a pile of rocks below a cliff, there's not even any blood!

Whatever. If you get off on watching hack film makers try and copy classic directors by making hackneyed chop jobs like this garbage, then this movie is for you. It is torture trying to sit through this movie. It goes nowhere, and takes forever doing so as well.... VERY SLOWLY.

However, some might find amusement in the laughable acting range displayed by the couple, in particular the girl with the black-rimmed glasses. As someone else commented, "How mid-90's!"

My Rating - 0 out of 10

...is, coincidentally, what I suffered through while viewing this miserable excuse for a film, indy genre notwithstanding. Yet each time I came running back from the bathroom to inquire about what I missed, my friend simply replied, "not a thing."

That's because the grueling experience of watching this movie, in retrospect, can be compared to your typical bout with diarrhea--seemingly incessant, often devoid of action, disturbing to hear/watch and at times excruciatingly painful; the minimal anticipation that is built up by scenes of pointless dialogue goes completely unsatiated when nothing interesting happens and all you end up with is a giant pool of watery poop.

Two of the three acting performances (I'll spare the guy who played the husband) were laughable. The so-called "plot twists" at the film's finale are completely uninventive and serve only to spark unwarranted conversation following the film between viewers who hope desperately to discover some sort of merit or hidden genius (that just isn't there) in what they just watched--in all, a futile attempt to justify having payed actual money to rent the movie. I implore anyone who values their time or cash to save yourself a buck or two and dial 1-800-SKIP-THIS-MOVIE-AT-ALL-COSTS!!!

***Warning : Spoilers***

This is one of those movies that screams out its independence...from any sort of decent plot or even average acting. The most emotion I got from watching this film was rooting for the "scary" hitchhiker to kill the other two annoying actors.

The best part of the movie was the jab at City People, which was very accurate. They come to the Country to escape the City, but then try to transform the Country to suit their desire to have City conveniences. If the writer/director had focused on that as a true plot point, instead of psycho alcoholic smoke fiends, maybe there would have been redeeming values to this movie. Also annoying was the idea of extreme risk to a not-yet conceived baby from consumption of a glass of wine or the smoking of a single cigarette.

Instead, we get an ending that I guessed at the beginning when they picked up the hitchhiker and "making a baby" was mentioned: Pregnancy of cheating idiot girl by hitchhiker. This is instead of the ending the movie so desperately tries to get you to anticipate, which is death by hitchhiker. I was actually waiting for the hiker to throw himself off a cliff. I would have, if faced with continued exposure to those inane, idiotic characters. I have also, BTW, never seen a modern cell phone ring more than 4 or 5 times before going into VM. Oh, and the alternatot black rimmed glasses are very mid-90's.

A side note of sorts: I am sure there will be some wanna be critics who will praise this movie for the "intelligent film making" and the mismatched dialogue/camera focus tricks. It is all worthless tripe, a cheap gimmick to make things look "cool". Unfortunately, it doesn't save the film from its useless meandering. This is possibly the worst film I have ever seen.

A waste of the $2 rental fee.

0 out of 10. There is no reason to see this movie. Many reasons not to.

i am sick to death of boring indie films about people ACTING. This movie is natural and real and fascinating. After a movie-world set-up, three brilliant actors and two great filmmakers take the premise and run with it. The result is a fascinating portrayal of subtle power-dynamics and manipulations. It all leads to a well-earned climax that may not be what you expect. Indeed, whenever there is a stylistic choice to be made "Kaaterskill Falls" takes the one you'd least expect. That's what makes it such a standout.

Don't waste 90 minutes of your time on this boring movie. A total disappointment! Even though it's an indy film (which most of the time I find are boring) we gave it a chance because the description sounded like the movie might be a good thriller. Halfway through the movie I kept wondering where the terror part of the movie was going to be. One of the most enjoyable things about the movie was the scenery. But the best part of the movie was when it ended! I'd rather watch grass grow or cars rust than ever watch this one again!

This film could have been done much better. There did not seem to be a realistic antagonistic relationship between the two men which is supposed to propel the plot. There is an excellent scene in the darkened woods involving the guys, and a scene at the falls that is well done. On the down side, there is no chemistry between the husband and wife. Why the guys are at lock-horns is a puzzle. The cinematography is good, and so is the music (although the music is ill-suited at times).

The film's plot does take interesting turns and is fairly intelligent, but the ending is troubling. Rent or buy Knife in the Water (the inspiration for this film) to gain an understanding of what Kaaterskill Falls was trying to do.

This movie is presented as a remake of Polanski's "Couteau dans l'eau" (Knife in the Water?), but it's more than that... The outside photography is spectacular, as is the music by Steve Tibbetts. The female lead and "Lyle" (the hitchiker) are completely believable - less so is the husband, his acting is a bit over the top, not a natural. The exterior scenes are in sharp contrast with the (very long) evening meal scenes in the cabin, which are at best video-like, but with a good soundtrack and interesting editing - it's alsmost as if the exterior scenes were by another director. The "plot twist" is, again, very believable and almost "understandable". For some reason it made me think of a book by Andre Gide ("Les faux-monnayeurs"), in which someone pushes another passenger of a running train. Murder never seemed so ordinary, so banal as in "Kaaterskill Falls", and it reminds us how tenuous the line is between socially acceptable and unacceptable behaviour - it wouldn't take much to make a murderer of any one of us, and sometimes over something extremely tenuous.

I was stunned by the incoherency. Here's a basic summary: 3 poorly developed characters stumble through sudden, irrelevant dialogue, in poorly edited and gratuitous scenes, leading up to one of the most ludicrous endings I've ever seen. Honestly, this has to be one of the most poorly edited films of all time, complete with jarring cuts back and forth, cuts in the middle of a line of dialogue to the exact same shot, voice-overs delivered by characters as they sit there sipping on their coffee, etc. I've heard suggestions/excuses for this... Guess what? There aren't any. It's not "artsy", it's not unique. It's just terrible.

The only thing that saved this was the lush setting, complimented by pretty decent shot composition. If they'd only thought about coverage, maybe they could have made it through one scene without gratuitous, incoherent cutting. Oh, and a decent script. They probably should have thought about that too.

Found this movie at times predictable (I pretty much guessed half the talk and most of the actions, except for the end) but I did like the talking and non talking sequences, found the actors attractive because they are not hollywood cookie cutters. Loved the ending, I give it 8 out of 10. Definitely a sleeper rental.

This is an interesting first effort film,cast of unknowns(to me at least),seems like they improvised the script as they went along.

The last part of film was shot around Bear Mountain, a very picturesque area. Acting very natural (as people actually do speak), This was seen on Sundance Channel,so it was acceptable

Rating **1/2 69 points/ IMDb 6

A young married couple is going away for a romantic weekend, when on a whim they pick up a hitchhiker. Things go from good to bad to worse in a plot that is fairly predictable until near the end when there is a twist that saved it for me.

The other factor was a very strange editing technique, which at first looked like a mistake: you hear a person speaking and the camera is showing that person, but *not* talking. After this happens several times it becomes clear that it was not a mistake and you wonder why it was done. I thought perhaps the idea was to make the person seem emotionally cold, while another idea I heard was that it made the person seem like two people. I would love to hear others' opinions.

Seen at Cinequest (the San Jose, CA film festival) on 2/25/2002.

I won't comment on the surprise because it will ruin the watching of the film. The movie starts out a bit slow but in hindsight, it was good that the movie paced itself and then picked up tempo for the surprising finale.

Watch the film. It was the best movie I saw at the 2002 San Jose Cinequest Film Festival.

City couple heads to their Catskill cottage. They pick up a quiet, strange hitchhiker whom they can't seem to shake.

I liked this, the bad ending notwithstanding. Id love to be able to say why the ending is stupid, but you should just watch it. When it ran on Sundance it was billed, 'hitchhiker terrorizes couple'. That's very inaccurate. He doesn't terrorize them at all, he's a little strange, but a decent person. What he does do, intentionally I'm sure, is expose their relationship for the charade it really is. What's interesting is that any relationship, given the right set of circumstances, can just as easily have the scaffolding ripped away, whether by an interloper as is done here, or through trauma. That is why so many fail when tragedy is injected. You jump into a relationship and quickly get carried down stream so to speak, and in doing so permanently blind yourself to many of the flaws inherent. We have to, or absolutely nobody would ever get married. The hitchhikers unexpected presence in their lives awakens sunken desires in the wife, not just the usual sexual rubbish, and immediately the marriage is steered towards the shoals. I found the whole experience very refreshing, save the ending. Dumb, someone should have talked them out of it. Now if you want to make a case that this guy doesnt actually exist, so that the ending has to be as it was... I don't know... One last thing: Why cant Sundance and IFC stick to showing films like these? Sure would be nice. You know what I'm talking about.

A trio of totally ungifted individuals apparently improvises a plotless script about a trio of hopelessly uninteresting people who babble endlessly (& inflectionlessly) in a seemingly endless stream of shallow cliche-ridden words which are flung like so much trash in the wind. Hard to say who's the worst "actor". Possible the female since she seems to be trying the hardest. Almost unbearable. Can't imagine anyone sitting through this in a theater.

Obviously this is low budget, but I think Kaaterskill Falls brings up excellent and never-ending issues about society's love/hate relationship with nature and technology. The scenery and plot are great, the acting pretty good. Character development evolves into something special and surprising by the films quirky end. All those whining about "no fake blood!", etc. should step back to respect the abstraction and simplicity of the film. This film, along with many low budget films, are about ideas and concepts. It does not need-- and in fact rejects-- all the smoke and mirrors of Hollywood. I saw it a few weeks ago and am still pondering its powerful unfolding. Being in the mountains will never be the same.

This isn't a film with a 100 million dollar budget. Not a 10 million dollar budget. Not 1 million... Try a few thousand, a few cans of film, access to some editing equipment and a group of friends setting out to make a movie in a few days with only a story outline. So the expectations are set at an understandable level. The result? An excellent psychological thriller that keeps you engaged, that makes you admire the dialogue that takes place. What this film isn't is a slasher film or action horror film. That's probably what most reviewing teenagers panning the film expected.

There's a reason why this film won the Critics Award at the Los Angeles IFP/West Film Festival, and was nominated for the John Cassavetes Award and the Independent Spirit Award at the Independent Spirit Awards.

Oh and by the way, throw in a very interesting plot twist to give it all an "edge". You have "Kaaterskill Falls".

I just borrowed this film from my local library, and it was a thought provoking film. Although poorly executed in many party, I think it is undeserving of vastly negative reviews on this page.

For the most part, this film was set up as a negative image of the stereotypes we would expect for the characters. You expect (and see on the poster/trailer) the hitchhiker to be a gruf, stuble-faced, tough, and carrying a big knife. You expect the husband to be a city-soft desk jockey. Instead, watching the movie you conclude that the hitchhiker is really an emotionally frail, almost effeminate. The husband is emotionally insecure in different ways, compensating with gadgets, wilderness know-how, and a lot of hot-air. This story would have been excellent if the dialogue and the scene cuts were used to provide background for those traits. (e.g., we know that the hitchhiker was once a cook - why did the writers not seize on this point and provide some insight into why we find him wandering alone "a couple of towns" away from his home.) It would have been better to give him a worldly cosmopolitan background - e.g., New York cook, possibly trained at the CIA in upstate New York, possibly homosexual, and trying to get away from some upsetting event (mother's death, many miles away, disapproving of her son's lifestyle, etc.) Expanding on the contrast of male insecurities would have given the film a powerful, and very rarely explored, set of complex themes that could have put it on par with The Crying Game.

I was underwhelmed by the dialogue and the cabin scene. The cabin scene dialogue was particularly poor. I fault it not for being too improvised, but for not being focused enough. This scene could have worked as dialogue, but falls flat as a random stream of disconnected viewpoints with the angry, drinking-smoking 30-something female, the insecure cub-scout, and the mixed up, "I don't really belong here", "I carry a menacing knife so I can look like John Rambo, but otherwise should be at home wearing an apron", hitchhiker. Just too unfocused. Delete the wife - send her out to buy dinner or something - and you have the potential for a powerful anti-climax when the husband tries to escape in the woods.

The last five minutes really blew all the interesting story points by resorting to the cliché climax of un-requited heterosexual/ reproductive urges. And while I found the part of the hitchhiker was played very well, as to line deliver, facial expression, and body language, his last line "You Should Go Home" was delivered out-of-character merely to precipitate the female outlash. This ending should have never have gone to print. There is no apology that can excuse the lame revelation about being pregnant. Who cares. It explains only the final action sequence, and nothing else. It's like the people involved in the project just lost interest at the end.

However, the movie is worth watching if you come across it on cable or your local library, if only for the scenery. From the shoot at the cellular tower to the trail exit, it was filmed at the actual Kaaterskill Falls trail. I suspect that the "lookout point" scene was filmed somewhere at North Lake. The Kaaterskill Falls trail is literally at 30 minute walk that I once did with my 80 year old grandmother, and once with a 6 month old... however it does have a history of accidental deaths and you can no longer hike the trail that used to lead to the top of the falls (I did it once, and the bottom basin is more impressive anyway). I doubt you could shoot the overhead shots by helicopter, as the canyon is pretty narrow, which leaves me impressed that they were able to get some of the shots in the film.

Overall, it was a film with a lot of potential that was not realized. I would love to see this film re-written and re-made with more thought. Do you really think a wealthy computer consultant with a male-insecurity problem is going to drive a green bug. Hell no - at least not in the Northeast. Next time, get than man a Hummer!