Gripping story with well-crafted characters

I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

Easily the biggest piece of Right wing non sense propaganda I ever saw.

The joyful confection is coated in a sparkly gloss, bright enough to gleam from the darkest, most cynical corners.

This dubbed Italia effort, the first movie, recreating the events of that tragic day in 1972, when that soccer team crashed in the Andes, is indeed involving, despite some cheaply filmed shots, that required a background screen. The surviving victims, some in a great deal of pain, finally had to resort to eating their friends. Two embarked off to get help, the second time succeeding in their quest. We learn from the first effort, if they had gone in the opposite direction, they would of come across the town. But you're in the Andes, remember. You couldn't hypothesize on where the closest help is. During this crisis of starvation and stuck in this below O blizzard, you almost feel like your one of them in this hellish ordeal. This movie which in my opinion, was better than the remake 16 years later, doesn't hold back on the dissection of these dead nude bodies, where for the living, this was their only source of nourishment. Be warned, some of the canniballism scenes may disturb but for you strong stomachs out there, this is a recommended viewing experience of a tragedy, you'll never forget, where hope and belief had to be kept strong. An inspirational drama, with an inspirational soundtrack.

Almost 20 years before Frank Marshall brought tears to your eyes with his mesmerizing epic "Alive", there already was the legendary Mexican exploitation director René Cardona who used the same drama as an outline for his ambitious film "Supervivientes de los Andes". The unforgettable fatal flight of Fairchild 571 that crashed in the Argentinian Andes on October 13, 1972. This terrible accident cost the lives of many passengers, most of them members of a professional rugby team. But 16 people of them were eventually rescued thanks to their strong will to survive and because they fed on the mortal remains of their unfortunate fellow-passengers. Of course you can't claim that this cheaply made and roughly edited film is better than the famous 90's version but I definitely appreciate and respect this film more. After all, an exploitation film demands a lot more input from both cast and crew while the big-budgeted Marshall film, although intense, feels more like routine money-making. The sets and special effects naturally can't compete with "Alive", but "Supervivientes..." delivers an equally impressive sentiment of hopelessness and creates an even more nightmarish hell of snow. Cardona's film is ambitious, surprisingly compelling and easily one of the most remarkable Mexican productions ever. I am really astonished that Cardona's take on this story isn't more exploitative and explicit. The scenes where the deceased passengers are cut open and consumed are nevertheless hard to digest, but they only serve to increase the credibility of the catastrophe and to stress the inhuman conditions of the survivors. Rather praiseworthy for a vicious director who gained fame with his notoriously bad films like "Night of the Bloody Apes" and the Santo-series. The unknown young Mexican actors do a great job and the musical score is endearing. The story is well-known, of course, so the screenplay doesn't offer any unexpected shocks. Either by history or previously having seen "Alive", you know which kind of dramas these people still have to endure before being rescued and you can only await them. Still, this is a good film that shouldn't be bashed like too often is the case.

The highest compliment one can pay to this movie is that it's no better or worse than the 1993 version of the same story ("Alive"), despite its having been produced on a much lower budget, with more primitive special effects. The problem is that if you're familiar with the story, there are no surprises left; you're simply waiting for the inevitable. It must be noted, however, that the "gore" factor has been considerably hyped up: the scenes that are "not for the squeamish" amount to a total of two. (**)

Making a film based on a true story, particularly one as incredible and horrifying as the 1972 Andean plane crash, is hard for even the best filmmakers. But the Mexicans behind this forgettable and cheap exploitation flick don't even try! The actual names of both the survivors and the casualties of the Uruguayan air force plane crash have ALL been altered, the crash itself is obviously staged in a very slip-shod manner, and the cannibalism aspect has been unnecessarily and gorily played up. Shockingly, it made a ton of money on both sides of the border. Thankfully, thought, it has mercifully been forgotten. But the same people behind this would later give us the equally revolting GUYANA: CULT OF THE DAMNED!This cheap horror exploitation flick necessitated the making of ALIVE some fifteen years later. That film was a masterpiece. SURVIVE!, to put it mildly, is not.