[31 Days of Halloween 2015: BENEATH is now available on DVD, Blu Ray, On Demand, and Netflix
Instant.]
Review by Bob Ignizio
*Note: As with last year’s 31 Days of Halloween marathon of
horror movie reviews, we’ll be diving deep into the new release section looking
for modern horror fare, hoping for the best, but frankly expecting the worst.*
There’s nothing wrong with ambiguity and/or subtlety in
horror films. One of my all-time favorite fright flicks (and one that’s on a
lot of other people’s lists, too) is the 1963 Robert Wise classic THE HAUNTING, a film in which much is
left to the imagination, and the true cause of the terrifying goings-on are
open to interpretation. Sometimes, though, subtlety can go too far. Case in
point, Ben Ketai’s recently released BENEATH.
The basic premise is a good one: tomorrow is going to be the
last day on the job for coal miner George Marsh (Jeff Fahey). At his retirement
party, his daughter Kelly (Samantha Noonan), and attorney, lets it slip that her
main area of practice is environmental law. She takes a fair amount of ribbing
over this from her dad’s co-workers, not all of it good natured. After much
drinking at dad’s party, Kelly agrees to go down in the mines to see what it’s
really like. But when a mine shaft collapses trapping Kelly, George, and the
rest of the miners (including Kelly’s ex, Randy (Joey Kern), it’s anything but
an ordinary day on the job.
Running short on oxygen and supplies, the survivors of the
collapse head for the rescue shelter. However, the sound of voices in the
distance sends them back out in the hope that maybe a few more miners are still
alive. After a fruitless search, the miners return to find that someone (or something)
has destroyed their oxygen tanks. Some of the survivors are starting to act
strangely, too. Is it just oxygen deprivation, or is something more sinister at
work?
While BENEATH
remains a more or less engaging thriller for its 90 minute running time, it’s
so intent on obscuring what, exactly, is going on that it forgets to bring the
horror. Sure, there are a few effective scenes, and just the idea of being trapped
in a mine is in itself pretty frightening. But this is a film that gives every
indication of being a monster movie, and then never gives us the monster.
Too bad, because there are a lot of things to like about
this movie. It’s a very well made film that does a good job of generating
suspense and a feeling of claustrophobia. The cast are all first rate, too. And
it’s just nice to see a working class horror movie in the vein of John
Carpenter’s THE THING or Ridley
Scott’s ALIEN for a change. Everyone
works so hard to make this a good movie that it almost works. But as much as there
is to like about BENEATH, it still
leaves the viewer feeling short changed. 2 ½ out of 4 stars.
No comments:
Post a Comment
We approve all legitimate comments. However, comments that include links to irrelevant commercial websites and/or websites dealing with illegal or inappropriate content will be marked as spam.
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.