The film opens with a Hungarian man telling a story about his granddaughter, a little girl in
ski getup standing on a slope at the Black Ridge, when a free rider suddenly slips and
rams into her.
We can see that the little girl is knocked out, but the man who hits her is alright.
However, instead of helping the little girl, the man and a friend of his decide to leave
her there.
After the two left, the poor child’s mom keeps calling her but she never hears back
from her.
We then skip to three years later; we see a couple driving along a road admiring the
beautiful snow top Mountains.
They are Mia and Max, a couple of Americans on a road trip in Georgia, who are beyond
excited to go snowboarding at the Black Ridge.
They keep driving along the twisting roads until they reach their hotel.
Inside the Georgia Ski Hotel, they are met by an unusual looking woman dressed in black.
During the check in, Max informs the lady that he and his fiancé are looking forward to the holiday
especially visiting the black ridge.
Hearing this, the receptionist informs them that The Black Ridge is off limits because
too many people go missing there in recent years.
But as it is Max and Mia’s dream to go there together as a couple, of course he doesn’t
plan on heeding the advice, and they are going to the ridge by helicopter.
That night, they get into deep conversation about their future together, including the
idea of getting married, and then they both eventually nod off.
Afterwards, Mia who is unable to sleep decides to head out to take a walk.
But then, when she opens the door, she is startled to see the receptionist there, giving
her a bottle of wine as a courtesy from the hotel.
She once again warns Mia to not go to the Black Ridge, because 5 days ago, a couple
stayed at this very hotel and the husband went missing at the Black Ridge.
And today, his body was found.
Creeped out by the imposition, Mia tells her she is going to sleep and shuts the door.
It's unclear why, but we can see that the receptionist draw a cross on the door before
leaving.
Mia realizes this and tells Max about it, but when he goes outside to have a look, the
cross is gone.
The following morning, as the couple is getting ready to leave, Mia discovers a wedding ring
in Max's bag.
The sight of this makes her happy, and she expects that Max will propose to her on the trip.
On their way out, an ambulance arrives in front of the hotel, carrying the dead body
that the receptionist was talking about last night.
Max and Mia ask how the man died, but the coroner doesn’t know.
He says that it’s strange.
After seeing the dead body, Mia hesitates about going, but Max convinces her to get
on with their plan because nothing bad will happen.
She follows Max up the mountain where the helicopter is waiting.
When the pilot also warns them about Black Ridge, Mia becomes very concerned, but it
is already too late because her fiancé really wants to go there.
Max even bribes the pilot to take them to the Black Ridge, and they hop onto the helicopter they rented.
On the way, Mia points out a giant cross sitting on top of a hill.
According to the pilot, the cross was put by the family of a young girl who died on
that spot at the Black Ridge — legend says that ever since her death, her ghost still
haunts the mountain.
The two then get dropped off at The Black Ridge, and proceed to snowboard down the very
steep slope.
They use comms to communicate and seem to be having a great time.
But unbeknownst to them, they passed a dead body buried in the snow.
Once Mia arrives at the valley below, a heavy fog surrounds her and she couldn’t seem
to find Max.
All of the sudden, a snowmobile rider pass, and struck her, knocking her out.
Sometime after, when she wakes, she immediately tries to reach Max through her comms, but
he doesn’t reply.
Mia tries calling his cell but he’s not answering either.
Lost and alone, she has no choice but to continue on foot.
She desperately looks for a signal, but couldn’t find any.
Despite this, Mia keeps on walking through the snow for hours, until she comes across
a snowboard track and a figure standing in the distance.
Oddly enough, she finds red roses planted on the ground.
Upon a closer look, we realize that the figure is Max, who is all tied up to a snowmobile,
which starts dragging him away.
The distressed woman desperately runs after them while crying for help, but to no avail.
She follows the snowmobile path, until she finds speckles of blood,
right when she also sees the man on the jet ski in the distance.
Mia demands to know where Max is, but the rider simply takes out a ticking bomb.
Thinking quickly, she immediately puts on her snowboard, right before the bomb explodes
and causes a massive avalanche.
Unfortunately, the avalanche catches up to her, and buries her alive.
As if that wasn’t enough, the mysterious snowmobile rider starts impaling a pole to
the ground.
He succeeds in hurting Mia's shoulder, which causes her to scream and eventually pass out
from the lack of air.
With the last bit of energy she has remaining, Mia reaches her hand out of the snow one last
time, right when she is helped out and dragged through the snow.
The scene then shifts to a lodge, where a man with a knife walks up to Mia as she sleeps.
He treats her wound and speaks to her in Hungarian, telling her that she shouldn’t have come here.
Back at the hotel, the receptionist looks distraught.
We hear her having an ominous conversation on the phone, wherein she says that it is
not the tourist's fault, and this all needs to stop.
Plus, this is the last time she’ll be helping.
At the secret shelter, the old man shows Mia a picture of his granddaughter, who is none
other than the little girl who died in the beginning of the movie.
With his limited English, he tells Mia that his granddaughter died three years ago, and
plays a recording of the granddaughter singing Let It Snow.
Hearing this, she sympathizes with him, and the two make a pact to stop the snowmobile rider.
When Mia wakes up the next morning, she explores the old man’s abode but doesn’t find him.
She heads out to explore further and finds a snowmobile instead, along with Max’s glove.
Scared as she realizes that the old man was the snowmobile rider after all, she takes
her backpack, a sandwich, and a set of keys from the house to try escaping with the snowmobile,
but none of the keys work.
Just in time, one snowmobile driver arrives, showing off the key to the snowmobile Mia’s
trying to start, before leaving.
On the other side of the story, a search party shows up at Black Ridge to start the rescue
operation.
Back to Mia, she is forced to spend the rest of the day walking since she has no other option.
She continues walking for hours, but eventually drops down exhausted.
The next day marks the third day that she’s stuck at The Black Ridge.
By now, she’s already out of strength and is lying on the ground.
Faintly, she hears people conversing not too far from her though; they are the search party
sent to look for her and Max.
But unfortunately for her, they fail to see her, and move along.
Mia then resumes her journey, until she comes across a makeshift tent with the writing ‘STOP.’
There, she sees baby dolls impaled on spikes, and finds Max’s other glove.
The woman then heads inside, and here she finds hundreds of black crosses scribbled
on the walls.
She also finds a shrine for the dead little girl, along with various knives.
As she explores deeper, she finds the old man tied up with blood all over his mouth,
telling her to run.
And just in time, she sees the mysterious snowmobile driver enter the space and runs
for her life.
While running, she collapses in the snow and passes out again from the lack of sustenance.
Afterwards, she wakes up, and hears Max calling her name through the comms, followed by a
recording of the little girl singing Let It Snow.
She tries speaking to him, but as Max doesn’t answer her, she continues on her path.
Mia musters up the courage to stand up and start stumbling through the snow, and is forced
to eat snow out of thirst.
She then stares at the ring on her finger, a marker that she said yes to Max’s proposal.
The ring keeps her going despite all odds.
Unlucky for her though, the snowmobile rider finds her not long after with an axe in hand.
He then chases after her, and while running for her life, she comes to an edge and is
forced to jump off a cliff.
Sometime later, Mia wakes up to find herself beside some rocks and a stream of water.
Miraculously, she survives, and decides to carry on, and walks along a river.
But yet again, she hears the sound of snowmobile engine revving, which scares her.
And so, she struggles to cross the river, and finds the mysterious rider standing on
the other side.
They end up in a stare down, and she screams at them in frustration.
For some reason, he backs up and leave her alone.
As the day grows older, she keeps walking until she stumbles upon a series of dilapidated
buildings and sits to rest.
She takes out a sandwich she stole from the old man’s place and eats it.
Later on, she sets up a fire and sleeps next to it.
She has dream that night, in which she reminisces about Max and their plan to have a baby.
When she wakes up the next morning, she tries to talk to him through her comms again, but
doesn’t hear a reply.
With little strength left, she gets up, and keeps on walking, with nothing but memories
of Max to keep her going.
Delirious from the cold and exhaustion, she sees a faint figure ahead, and tries calling
Max’s name.
However, as she draws near, she realizes with disappointment that it's just a snowman.
Upon looking closer, she notices that there is a dead person inside it.
She then notices the engagement ring that Max bought for her when she looks in the snowman's hand.
Mia finally realizes that it is Max’s dead body made up into a bloody snowman.
Devastated, she holds him close, and as she feels like he is the love of her life and
does not want to live without him.
The horrifying choice is then made; she grabs the snowman and pushes herself over the cliff
hundreds of feet below.
The man in black watches Mia fall to her death, and afterwards, the snowmobile rider heads
to the huge cross on top of the hill, where we see Katie 2006 to 2017.
It is at this point that the film cuts back in time to show the child from the beginning
of the film, Katie, lying dead in the snow with her grandfather, mother, and the mysterious
receptionist, who is her aunt standing over her.
The scene then returns to the present, where it is revealed that the man in black is actually
the child's mother.
We then hear the voice of the grandfather, who states that there is nothing worse than
the revenge of a heartbroken mother.
We are taken back to an earlier time to see the happy daughter singing Let it Snow, while
hugging her mother in the final scene.
Before the film ends, the camera pans down the side of the mountain, revealing Mia's
bloodied body lying in the snow.
It turns out that she is not dead and manages to get to her feet, looking totally devastated and lost.
The movie ends with her screaming angrily.