We open up to the worst kind of soldier there is, a want to be gangster machinery who is rocking out with his headphones. While taking a leak he discovers a mask which as you can guess is not the best for him. He walks around until he finds a cave, on that is rather huge and while looking around he gets sucked through the floor and we hear him scream. Next is the title screen which is animated rather well, a silhouette style that I’m personally a fan of.
Now we get to see some Americans being uptight when looking at the same hole in which we watched the last guy die in presumably. After the first couple of seconds I wanted both him (Warren played by Les Loveday) and his girlfriend(Su-Ling played by Carmen Soo) to die. They have a small group with them, a few military help (Ario Bayu, Joe Taslim, Mike Lewism, Jaitov Tigor) and an engineer (sam Hazeldine). Right it should be obvious to anyone who watching movies that most of them are disposable and that is what we want from a horror movie. If we care about every single character then he don’t want to them to die. A few stand out; the engineer and the commanding office are both likeable types. Neither wants to be where they are, something that makes it easy to feel for them.
They move along until they find a mine, apparently the one they were looking for. While Captain Prawa looks through the mine to make sure its going to be safe the team is attacked by some ground and forced into the mine. One gets his leg messed up pretty bad when a grenade is chucked in there after them and they get sealed into the mine when the entrance caves in. Come to find out the loser American was there looking for gold, it feels like the movie Congo a little bit but the moment the line was delivered it felt phony which could be a good thing or a bad one depending how much you feel like thinking about the film while watching it. It’s here where the horror aspect comes in; I don’t know many people who would not be scared going deeper and deeper into a mine with little hope of getting out alive.
Strangely I am the only one who feels this way because the characters seem to be alright with it.
The mine had been repurposed during WW2 and they get a little spooked that there is some random music playing at one part and lights. Come to find out there are soldiers still living in the mine, it was actually not just a base but a scientific research center. The first kill is something that I loved (sadly the only one that I actually liked); hands just pull thins pull down through a hidden hole in the ground which leads to this tunnel system. I wished more would have been done to the body but it was still a very nice set up to just how quick the scientifically modified people were… by the way the things that are attacking the people stranded in the mine are humanoid. There were a few twists involved with that, nothing too crazy but it worked.
First major complaint, when people are speaking Chinese please put subtitles in. it’s extremely frustrating to hear conversation and not know what is going on. Product placement is done in weird ways, like the blackberry tablet the Asian researcher uses. Another goes for all movies like this, you have armed men, soldiers, who have no issue killing. So why didn’t they just kill the people who put them in horrible scenarios… I would have been debating it. Because of some rich boy and his girlfriend my friends are in danger, and will most likely die, I think leaving him down there to die slowly isn’t out of the realm of possibility. Forget about the fact there is a possibility of gold being stashed down there.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OUNPX47JHSA
Some of the acting was good, others sucked. The sets were pretty good, the sound was fine while the story was uninspired but workable. Sadly the end was somewhat crap and a lackluster third act.
Grade: D
arlivingston
kevinsullivan85
tentekewl
Oh! The Terror! 