Description
If you take the concept of Ridley Scott's "Alien" and relocate it to the present day Southwestern desert, you'd have a pretty good idea of what "Unearthed" is like. And I mean that more as a put down; this is a red-blooded creature feature, so red-blooded that loses sight of important elements like story and character development. All it really focuses on is a monstrous entity that arises from the caves of New Mexico and wreaks havoc on an isolated town; everything else is secondary. The fragments of complexity scattered throughout are painfully underdeveloped, as if to say that nothing meaningfulmore… can be used in this outrageous a plot. I do give it credit for trying its best, but considering how thoroughly unconvincing it is, that really isn't saying a whole lot. This film is founded on a promising idea, yet it ends up lacking any real substance.
It does have its moments, though. It packs the most punch during the last twenty minutes, in which the characters and the creature are both predator and prey. During these moments, we never get a real sense of what this creature looks like--it's exposed to light in split-second increments, while the rest of the time it moves quickly through shadows. Even there, problems exist; this is normally a highly effective storytelling method, but it isn't effective enough in the case of "Unearthed." The computer graphics used to create the creature are so unrealistic that they come dangerously close to being laughable. This is a shame because, in the brief glimpses I was able to get, this monster was actually pretty cool looking. Its many clawed limbs converge on a grotesque slender body, and it's wide mouth opens to a number of sharp, pointy teeth. If a giant insect and a giant crab were to meet, this thing would be the end result of their affair.
That's about as good as it gets when it comes to "Unearthed." Everything else is incredibly weak, especially in terms of the characters. The lead is the town cop, Annie (Emmanuelle Vaugier), who about to be elected sheriff. But there are some major issues; because of an incident resulting in an accidental death, pretty much the entire town has lost all respect for her. This, in turn, has driven to alcoholism. She's introduced waking up on her couch, after which she fixes herself a cocktail of orange juice and vodka. For someone stuck in an emotional rut, I was surprised at how little I believed it: she functions too well, her body shows no signs of the strain that alcohol causes, and frankly, her face is still far too pretty.
All the supporting characters are either underdeveloped or introduced too late. There's Nodin (Tonantzin Carmelo), the town scientist. Annie gives Nodin one of the creature's appendages for analysis (found at the scene of a crashed semi truck); she's unable to conclude what kind of a being it came from because it has elements from all five kingdoms of life (monera, prostista, fungi, plants, and, of course, animals). There's her grandfather (Russell Means), a Native American who seems to have a philosophical answer for everything. There's Ally (Whitney Able) and Caya (Beau Garrett), two girls on the way to California to break into acting. They stop and pick up Charlie (Tommy Dewey), a stranded motorist who's conveniently young and hunky.
And then there's Rob Horn (M.C. Gainey) and Kale (Luke Goss). Horn fits the stereotype of the Wealthy Tycoon, and we suspect his disregard for Annie is for reasons simpler than her alcoholism. He enters the picture when his cattle are mysteriously slaughtered, and of course, he wants more money for his losses than the government is willing to give. Kale is perhaps the most baffling character of all--he spends most of his time operating a long archeological dig, and he's absolutely obsessed with proving a theory related to both the creature and an ancient Native American tribe. He's so obsessed that he openly points guns at people and orders them to continue the work started by Nodin's grandfather. Why did he have to do this? What can he possibly hope to gain? There's a moment when he tricks one of the characters into getting bitten by a rattlesnake, and right then, I wanted to throw something at the screen.
The rest of the film follows the creature feature formula to a tee, including having the creature stalk the characters through a series of dark caves. These were the best scenes "Unearthed" had to offer, which is a shame since they contribute nothing new or exciting to the horror genre. This movie is unflatteringly derivative, and what originality there is lacks any sense of purpose. I feel it only fair to say that I was never expecting a masterpiece; this is a horror movie, after all, and there are virtually no new ideas left for horror movies. Still, I was expecting something better, something that at least tried to make due with what it had. And a little more explaining would have been nice, especially when it comes to the creature's history. What we are told makes absolutely no sense--it felt like a plot device tacked on at the last minute because a good idea was so hard to find. As hard as it tries, "Unearthed" is about as phony as the look of it's monstrous creature.
| M.C. Gainey |
| Russell Means |
| Miranda Bailey |
| Emmanuelle Vaugier |
| Luke Goss |
Info:
- Category:
- Movies > Films
- Case Type:
- DVD
- Release Type:
- Retail
- Language:
- English
- Region:
- R1
- Format:
- Widescreen
- Comments:
- 1 read add
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Cover Info:
- Title:
- Unearthed - After Dark Horror Fest (2007) WS R1 Retail DVD
- Part:
- CD
- Dimensions:
- 1820 x 1820 px
- Size:
- 566 KB
- Downloads:
- 108 (0 today)
- Uploaded:
- 09/07/08 by The Kid 65
- Quality Rating:
-
- Currently /5 Stars.
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