It's been a while since I've seen anything regarding the Renny Harlin film based on the true Russian story The Dyatlov Pass Incident, which is now simply renamed Devil's Pass for the American market, but recently a new trailer appeared and prompted me to go on a little search for information.

The true story offers a great mystery for the writers to work with and it looks like Harlin has leapt on the idea and has delivered a pretty decent horror film. Mind you, the earlier trailers were the better ones.

I say that because the new trailer for Devil's Pass, or as it should still be called The Dyatlov Pass Incident, reveals a little too much and suddenly the sheen of the mystery is gone. Now we know what we're facing and it isn't as mysterious or as exciting as I previously hoped.

This story is, as the clip says, based on actual events. The actual events took place in 1959 in the Russian Ural mountains when a hiking trip disappeared without word. One of the team who was ill and left at a small village on the way to the now famous Pass raised the alarm and a search party dispatched.

They discovered tents ripped from the inside and no one to be found. After some searching bodies were found, two in their underwear and the others burned, buried and with significant internal injuries. Further claims suggested that one body was missing its tongue and there was a high radioactivity on the bodies.

The investigation into the missing team found only that they had been victims of "a compelling unknown force." The pass now carries the name of the expedition's leader, Igor Dyatlov.

That was the story that instigates the events in the film where five American students are given a grant to investigate the place and the mysterious events, and of course when they do, there's serious trouble and history repeats itself all over again.

Here's the latest trailer for Renny Harlin's Devil's Pass which comes through Empire, the problem with it is that it gives far too much away in my eyes, revealing what is behind the events, and while we're still to find out what's the initial story, it seems pretty clear that we're in for some well-trodden territory. If you'll forgive the pun.

There are a few clichés in here, well actually there are quite a lot, just watch the scene of the two of them having sex just before the terror strikes, or the face appearing in the window, moments like these aren't anything new or exciting.

Personally I think that this previous trailer is much more powerful than the new one above, have a look to see what you think.

Here's another one I found during the search. It gives away a little less but still perhaps too much. I'll let you make up your own mind.

After all that I was distracted - ooh, shiny - and I started looking up the actual events, trying to discover what happened in the actual story. That turned out much more frightening than anything in the trailer.

Here's a video of one of the more factual descriptions of what happened, one not involving aliens or mythical creatures, of which there are many out there. The following news story comes about as the surviving member of the party died and they revisit the events with a more factual slant, revealing that he spent his life investigating the events to try and find out what had happened to his friends.

His belief that the Soviet military were to blame is one of the more common ones, there are some speculations regarding the testing of secret weapons, but then there are the crazier ones ranging from cult killings to aliens.

Here's another unbiased video that carries pictures from the team's own camera as well as from the rescue expedition.

All this truth is far scarier than what's portrayed in that trailer I'd say. Of course if you're a much more analytical and logical person like myself, the truth is much less scarier. Cracked.com have a short but good article quickly debunking some of the key points and it all makes much more sense.

Before I stop going on about this, have a look at some photos on Flickr some of which seem to be looking at the avalanche theory for the tent damage, or how about Flickr photos of the official documents of the investigation? I wish I could read Russian.

I don't know about you but up until the facts come right out at the end the mystery was far more intriguing than the trailers of the film. What do you think?