Story: 1846. Everyone on the East Coast of the USA seems to be headed to Cali-for-nih-aye, the golden promised land. The Donner Party tries to get there, but not everyone will make it. Okay, not everyone will make it without being digested by someone else.
Scares: Scary? No. Creepy and unsettling? Yes. For folks that want to cut to the cannibalism, er, chase, head to minute 51. “There’s nothing to eat.” Indeed.
Splat Factor: Great makeup FX, hollow eyes, pale skin and dried lips. Very little blood for a history lesson on cannibalism in the good ol’ US of A (you’ll see more blood in the soccer-kids-survive-a-plane-crash film Alive.) Even at the get to eating part of the film, it’s more off-cam butchering noises & people eating what looks like hunks of chicken breast. Which I’m guessing it is. Though with CG one never really knows.
Closing Scene “Shocker”?: Not at all. A final fade out, then the usual historical “what happened next” paragraphs.
Remake, Sequel or OG (Original Ghoul)?: Oh it’s an original all right.
Trick or Treat?: Like a chocolate bunny, it’s not terrible but it feels out of season. And kinda hollow. Not really spooky, but not exactly the usual dramatic history lesson. Okay, so I chose this because of the title. But the first half feels like a historical docudrama, & the second half veers into frozen Lord of the Flies territory. Unlike the historical transcripts, this Party doesn’t wait for members to expire; they (and in particular Crispin Glover’s posh William Foster) kill to eat, or for revenge.
The title itself is a misnomer (shades of yesterday’s Madhouse): it’s really more a look at The Forlorn Hope sub-group than the whole party. Movie-wise, I was surprised by the attention to detail; production values are pretty damn good for what I’d assumed was a toss-off film. But you’ll see no gleeful human chomping or other Texas-Chainsaw-age here; “keep it down. Live.” Though a few of the members go a bit crackerpants towards the end. Wanna guess who leads the charge?
Historically accurate? No, though nice touch putting a Donner photo on the movie poster. For example, nobody in The Forlorn Hope was shot down in their prime to provide sustenance for others. Otherwise it follows the general timeline. Besides, even with survivor’s accounts who’s to say what is accurate and what was a fever dream? I did notice a lack of kids in the film, something I’m sure the producers left out as nobody wants to watch children freeze to death. My cousin who went to CU Golden said an on-campus cafeteria was called the Donner Café. Yeah, if I had known that I would have gone there too. For Halloween The Donner Party a bit of an odd fit. Maybe on a cold, snowy night in December though….
Score: 
out of 5 pumpkins.
Atomic Fangirl 
I’ve never felt any need to see this film. There are some really excellent documentaries on the Donner Party. If I have to chose between a great dicumentary with re-enactments of the known facts or a movie that has been over-fictionalized, I’ll pick the documentary. It is interesting to note that there was one family in the party that refused to resort to cannibalism and they had the fewest number of people succumb to the winter.
As a random thought, you mention that it looks like chicken meat. I would have thought it would look like beef since human muscle tissue is red. Or maybe a bit lighter, like pork, since swine tissue is most like human tissue. But I never would have thought chicken.
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Y’know, this just popped up on my On Demand…and I figured why not? (Read: I’d never in a million years watch it for any other reason.)
And I had the same problem with the “chicken meat”. It was weird, and yet another thing that pulled me out of bonding with this film.
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