Sometimes truth is stranger - or more horrific - than fiction. Both of these apply to this true story, which happened in the American West in 1873. That winter, people were waiting for the spring, in order to stake gold claims in Colorado. A group of amateur prospectors hired tracker Alfred Packer to get them to the prospecting area before the spring thaw. Circumstances lead them to be lost and starving in the wilderness. Only Alfred Packer made it out alive. The reason for his survival might be summed up in the movie's tag line: "How far would you go to stay alive?" Subsequently, Packer was imprisoned for 17 years. To his dying day, he would swear his innocence.

This was an American National Enterprises movie; all of the movies I've seen released by them all qualify to be reviewed at this site. All are painfully low-budget, sentenced to late-night TV on independent channels (with a few long-deleted exceptions on video). With this in mind, maybe that's why they chose to imitate Republic by using an eagle for the studio credit at the beginning.

The movie opens after the events, where reporters are attempting to get a pardon for him, under protest from the general public. In a very contrived scene, a Chicago reporter talks with one of the Colorado reporters about the events. Not only is this introduction not needed, the people in this introduction are never seen again.

The rest of the movie is about the events in question. Not knowing much about the incident myself (even after doing some research), it was hard to determine what the filmmakers made up for dramatic purposes, and what was actually true. Since there was only one living witness to the events, I can understand why the filmmakers felt they were short of facts. But I doubt very much the exhibition met up with two crazy mountain men right out of Deliverance (and try to recreate one of the notorious scenes from that movie). But aside from those scenes, everything else that is portrayed in the movie might very well have happened. (In fact, the remarks by the judge at the end of the movie are indeed what were said by the actual judge.)

Technically, the movie is poor. The indoor scenes seem to be only lit by the prop lights on the set. The outdoor scenes aren't much better - with some shots, one half of the screen is acceptable, while the other half is poor. Acting is acceptable.

After a slow first half, most of the second half of the movie - the long, painful walk home - is surprisingly effective. Using the natural environment and weather, the director manages to convey the pain the men are facing. One disturbing scene has the starving men find a calf stuck on a log. The men pounce on the calf and start to tear it apart, and as the camera turns away from them, we hear frantic eating noises. Once the movie returns to civilization, it returns to mediocrity, unfortunately.

For an independent low budget movie, TLOAP has interest. For movies in general, it is only average.

FOOTNOTE: (Read no further if you don't want to know what Alfred Packer did) A few years ago, the creators of South Park (Matt Stone & Trey Parker) made a feature-length musical about the events called Cannibal! The Musical. And in 1977, the US Department of Agriculture named their staff canteen after Alfred Packer! Not knowing what he did, they said "Alfred Packer exemplifies the spirit and fare that this agriculture department cafeteria will provide." A few months later, they found out what Alfred Packer did, and they renamed the cafeteria.

FOOTNOTE 2: Reader Al Sirois informs me that the spelling of the name of the real-life "hero" of this movie is Alferd, not "Alfred". Though since writing this review, I've come across several articles on Al, and I've seen his name spelled both ways! Looking up the title of this movie in two of my reference books, I found it spelled "Alfred". So that's how it will remain in my review, unless I come across the movie again and I see it spelled the other way.