Steep (2007)

"Steep is a thrill ride for audiences.  Francine Brokaw, MovieWeb.com
"A landmark documentary from the studio muscle behind acclaimed action-sports epics Dogtown and Z-Boys and Riding Giants.  Graham Gephart, Ski Press World
"An adrenaline fueled rush into the sport of extreme skiing.  Jeff Craig, Sixty Second Preview
"Awesome! Steep is without a doubt one of the year's most exciting films...You have never seen anytrhing like it before!  Pete Hammond, Maxim
"...breathtaking footage...enthusiasts and neophytes alike should be able to join together in gasping at the sight of people plunging down vertical walls of ice...  Tasha Robinson, The Onion A.V. Club

Editor's Note Narrated by SIX FEET UNDER's Peter Krause, STEEP is an exciting examination of the dangerous sport of extreme skiing. The film was written and directed by Mark Obenhaus, a journalism veteran who has spent more than 30 years working on incisive television documentaries (including at ABC News with Peter Jennings, to whom the film is dedicated), STEEP follows the exploits of a dozen current and former adventure skiers who have risked their lives to ski down remote mountains where no one has skied before. They take helicopters and climb mountains to reach the points at which they head downhill, with no signs or nicely carved paths to lead them on their way. They never know when they're going to come across a tree, a rock, or even a cliff as they slice down breathtaking vistas. Obenhaus, who also serves as one of the executive producers of the film, captures amazing runs in British Columbia, France, Iceland, Wyoming, and Alaska, featuring such athletes as Doug Coombs, Chris Davenport, Ingrid Backstrom, Shane McConkey, Andrew McLean, and Seth Morrison. Older legends such as Anselme Baud, Bill Briggs, and Stefano De Benedetti discuss the origins of the sport and are seen in archival footage alongside the newer generation, who is constantly trying to top itself by attempting the seemingly impossible. Influenced by the films of Warren Miller and THE BLIZZARD OF AAHHH'S, STEEP follows these thrillseekers who live for danger, including one of them who actually dies doing the thing he loved best. Anton Sanko's score propels the remarkable action, along with songs by Quien es, BOOM!, and Low.

	Andrew McLean - Featuring
	Anton Sanko - Original Music By
	Bill Briggs - Featuring
	Caitlin Costin - Producer
	Chris Davenport - Featuring
	Doug Coombs - Featuring
	Erich Roland - Cinematographer
	Ingrid Backstrom - Featuring
	J. Stuart Horsfall - Executive Producer
	Mark Obenhaus - Director
	Mark Obenhaus - Writer
	Peter R. Livingston, Jr. - Editor
	Seth Morrison - Featuring
	Shane McConkey - Featuring
	Stefano De Benedetti - Featuring
	Victor Magro - Original Music By

Box Office
"What STEEP does really well...is capture the attraction of the sport and its lifestyle..." 01/01/2008 p.46

Los Angeles Times
"STEEP is one of those rare endeavors able to touch on the human condition without neglecting the film's true star: big-mountain skiing." 12/21/2007

Empire
3 stars out of 5 -- "If you're a fan of 'extreme skiing,' this film is your Holy Grail....You'll be rewarded with a man skiing, Bond-style, off the edge of a cliff before parachuting down." 10/01/2008 p.64

San Francisco Chronicle 7 of 10
Most of the people you'll meet in the often extraordinary documentary "Steep" will seem completely nuts. They tell you how the mountains speak to them. They tell you how one day the mountains will be kind to you and the next day, they'll be "pissed off" at you. They will talk about people they've known who've been swept away by the snows, or sailed off the edges of ragged cliffs to their deaths. And they'll tell you none of it has been enough to stop them from going up the mountains again...Although the film, which was created by a team of writers and directors headed by executive producer and lead writer/director Mark Obenhaus, features a number of past and current extreme skiers from all over the world, they all pretty much say the same things: that they live for the danger, that they thrive on going where no one else has gone, that, when they are plunging down a mountain at 50 mph and when the angle of the slope hits 50 percent, the force of gravity is so great, you just have to give into it...In the end, you will believe the film's talking heads, but, more than likely, what they say may still make little logical sense to you. But that's OK. It's not supposed to. Unless you feel the mountains calling yourself and cannot ignore them. - David Wiegand

Variety 6 of 10
Like its sister films in the surfing-movie genre, the extreme-skiing movie "Steep" is less a documentary than a sales pitch -- not for a product or a place, but for a sport, one its practitioners feel requires pugnacious self-promotion. Spectacular alpine landscapes, suicidal descents on 70-degree mountainsides and skiers with an inflated sense of self (and no sense of self-preservation) will make for a cultish theatrical release...Given the risks involved (extreme skiers purposefully choose the most dangerous, inaccessible, sharply pitched and unstable surfaces in the world), "Steep" is willfully blind to the questions it inevitably raises, such as: Why? Why do these men -- and except for the heartstopping Ingrid Backstrom, the film is a virtually all-male endeavor -- do what they do? There's a lot of blather about the mountain making them come alive, but considering how many people die on the slopes, the viewer really wants a little less of the gnarly dudes and something closer to a professional diagnosis..."Steep" has its moments. Some are exhilarating, others seemingly insane. But the movie also feels like a sermon. The featured skiers protest too much about the value of what they do, sounding as if they're defending and ultimately trying to ennoble it. But they're not curing cancer; they're sliding down hills on two sticks. It should be fun. So should "Steep." - John Anderson