Friday, October 7, 2011
The Burrowers
2008 **
I got this because Jocelin Donahue from House of the Devil is in it. It will be a struggle to say something else about the movie that is even one-third as interesting as that.
It starts out promisingly enough. Jocelin and her family are kidnapped by Indians (presumably, but wrongly), and her boyfriend puts together a posse to go hunt them down. But it's monsters. Underground monsters. Sigh.
Dammit. I watched the first 25 minutes of this last night before I crashed, and I was pretty excited about watching the rest of it. I don't think there are many horror movies set in the Old West. Actually, at the moment I can't think of a one. The idea of subterranean foes in a land so flat and featureless seemed like an idea with potential. I could go into the plot details and you might stroke your goatee and think "Intriguing..." But the movie just wanders around, the suspense is completely squandered, the tone is impossible to pin down, the monsters don't get enough screen time and when they do they're not so great -- overall the payoff just... isn't. Maybe that's on purpose, so yay for art, but it's no fun to watch.
Not super bad, not bad enough to be good, just disappointing and forgettable. Which may be the worst thing of all.