Harrowing adventure film has 3-minute horror moment that will make your adrenaline levels explode for the whole year

The snow company launched on Netflix on January 4, 2024 and made its way straight to the top of the streamer’s top 10, i.e. the streamer’s most-watched films. Rightly so. Because the survival adventure by JA Bayona (Jurassic World 2) gets under your skin in the best and most terrible way. One scene in particular still hasn’t let go of me a week later.

Netflix’s number 1 hits us with thrilling images and a tough adventure story

Bayona is filming this in his adventure The Snow Company true events of a plane crash in 1972, in which a rugby team from Uruguay became stranded in the wilderness in the Andes on their way to Chile. In double-digit minus temperatures at an altitude of over 4,000 meters, they waited in vain for rescue for over two months. The catastrophe, which some of the passengers survived despite all odds, went down in history as either the “Tragedy of the Andes” or the “Miracle of the Andes”.

The snow company begins effectively from a bird’s eye view: we float over picturesque white mountain peaks that wouldn’t be out of place in a Lord of the Rings film (JA Bayona, after all, directed the first two episodes of the Lord of the Rings series). However, despite the radiant landscape, his Netflix adventure strikes a dramatically dark tone. The initial overhead view is necessary to make it clear that even something as large as a passenger plane can easily be overlooked in the valleys of the mountains. Rescue is almost impossible.

Numa Turcatti (played by Uruguayan Adam Driver Enzo Vogrincic) takes us into the story as the narrator and gives direction to the horror that follows. In the first ten minutes we briefly and effectively get to know the charming athletes and their friends and family members who were taken on the flight “for just 45 dollars”. Then the film plunges us into its unforgettable catastrophe. The Snow Company may not be the first adaptation of this true story, but for me it is certainly the best.

Already in minute 13, Die Schneegesellschaft delivers its most impressive scene

In minute 12 of The Snow Company the first turbulence begins. The first signs of uncertainty creep onto the faces of the sports team, who were just celebrating on the plane. Seat belts are tightened. The external view shows how the plane briefly collapses in mid-air. In the Netflix film, the danger was previously explained by the warm and cold air masses that meet over the highest peaks of the Andes. So we know immediately what is happening as we now thrown into pure experience become.

The shaking increases and a passenger is thrown against the ceiling of the plane. Fear turns into panic and the view out the window still only shows wisps of clouds rushing past, from which mountain sides that appear far too close emerge. The machine tries to pull up. The pilot’s exclamation of “More thrust!” comes from the cockpit and directs the view forward. We can the Feel the helplessness of the loudly praying passengers firsthand, when the fog suddenly clears and a white mountain wall fills the frame. One last look at the sun…

And then there’s this one shot where my breath completely catches: when the plane scrapes its belly along the top mountain ridge, doesn’t make the climb in time, and tears apart in the middle. Passengers are sucked out of the interior of the halved plane and then comes the crash and impact. The seats in the rows of airplanes push together with a metallic squeak like corrugated iron and screams accompany the catastrophe with the sound of bones breaking. When darkness and silence finally settle over the images, that’s after 3 minute torture a redemption.

The snow company feeds off his 3-minute horror moment for 2.5 hours

After this experience, I sit trembling on my sofa and believe that I have just crashed. It feels wrong to compare films based on the believability of their plane crashes. But what The Snow Company delivers here has to be in its own right thrillingly realistic horror still be appreciated. I inevitably think back briefly to JA Bayona’s survival thriller The Impossible, which made the dangers of a tsunami really understandable and tangible to me for the first time.

The rest of the fight for survival that the Netflix film presents to its audience in the following 130 minutes also pushes the pain threshold. Even if the horror that the stranded passengers have to resort to while waiting for rescue is of a different nature. But the plane crash right at the beginning is so impressively staged that it… The high adrenaline levels prevented my body from calming down until the end.

Looking back, the grueling opening experience was a smart move. Finally, the quickened pulse has to last until the end credits, even though the rest of the film consists largely of “waiting” rather than frantic action. But when you’re looking, there’s actually no time to think about it. The snow company works as a physically and emotionally grueling survival thriller too good.

In the end, the conviction remains: Netflix’s The Snow Company is a shocking start to the year that is well worth seeing despite all the hardships, don’t miss it should.

Podcast with The Snow Company: The 5 most exciting streaming films in January on Netflix, Amazon and Co.

You don’t know what to stream on Netflix or Amazon tonight? In the monthly overview we present you the most promising new films in January.

Among the 5 selected streaming films you will find a star-studded sci-fi drama as well as a survival thriller that was made on Netflix based on true events.