Beneath

Beneath starts off slow and steady but the ride is worth it. It's not your typical dumb for the masses movies. It creeps in on you, the slow pace will deter a few viewers same goes for the unfairly low ratings and review, but it will reward the ones that stick with it.

Reminiscent of other claustro-horror like "The Descent" or "The Cave", it manages to create it's own thing without just blatantly copying what others did before.

Some the the actors performances where disappointing but the story, script and good photography makes up for it. The carefully crafted mixture of light, shadows and darkness sets an incredible claustrophobic mood. The ambiance audio is also gteatly contributing to the eeriness vibe this movie warps you in.

The only other disappointing element of this movie is a redundant jump scare that is overused and isn't actually needed that much. Can't go in more details without spoilers but you will understand when you see it.

My quick rating 4,9/10. The trapped in the coal mine flick is back. Being trapped with "something" is a common theme for horror/thriller movies to use so can't go anywhere really on originality. Ther are a few good things about this movie even though it is straight formula. The most important is the way the focus is back and forth between something being down there (demon, spirit, etc.) or just hallucinations due to lack of oxygen and the miners losing it mentally. Throughout he whole movie you will be wondering which it is (and no i am not saying). The other plus is the fact that the use of lighting is well done to only allow the lights the characters have illuminate the scene. That being said the movie spends a solid 10 minutes of an 80 minute film in complete darkness. Literally. This doesn't mix too well with often entirely to shaky footage when you can see. This major distraction is unbearable at some parts and takes away greatly from what could've been a good flick. Still worth seeing but I suggest on cable.

I love when I skeptically click on these 5.4 rated movies on imdb (what it's at now), but what I get is a 6.3 calibre movie. There wasn't any point in this one where I was like "nah, that wouldn't happen" or "nah, I'm bored." This was just solid all the way through, with no boredom, no cringe moments, no scenes that drag out, just pure claustrophobic terror. I will say most of the jump scares were predictable horror tropes (girl turns around quickly and there's a face behind her, etc.), but they were still high quality for what they are. It's interesting, the fact that something this good only got a 5.4 has me wondering about other horror movies around that score. Maybe there's a lot more good ones then I thought.

Good scares, good atmosphere, good acting, good gore, basically good everything. The only reason I didn't rate it higher is that it's a very simple premise. It accomplishes what it set out to do, but what it set out to do is not very ambitious. This isn't high art, like Event Horizon or Annihilation. It reminded me of The Descent, although not quite as good due to less character development. In The Descent, I really cared for the characters. In this one, not so much.

If you want simple and effective claustrophobic horror, this is it.

The movie start with a scene in a bar where the female lead says she is going to go down in the coal mine to show the guys that she can totally do what they can do. She does indeed go down into the mine because she wouldn't be part of the movie otherwise. A couple of guys working a digger break into some sort of tunnel. Almost immediately afterwards, there is a collapse and they are all trapped. It's unclear whether this is just a coincidence or whether the two events are related. Trapped and with the air going bad, they go to a rescue shelter to wait it until until help arrives. Of course, that's not how it plays out because that would make for a really boring movie. The two men who were working the digger are missing. Spooky stuff starts happening. Et cetera.

This movie does have some thing going for it. The female lead is not the best but the supporting cast is good. The underground environment is believable and suitably claustrophobic. The make-up effects are pretty good. What lets this movie down is the script. I get keeping the audience in the dark at first to build suspense but this movie keeps the audience in the dark for the whole movie. The female lead starts seeing things almost right away but doesn't bother to mention this tidbit to anyone. We never really find out why either. We never really find out why anything is happening or how much of this even is happening. There's a lame stinger ending that just made me roll my eyes. There are some good elements but they don't even come together in to anything.

We have seen the story before... trapped in a mine, a group of people struggle to survive. Yes, we have seen it and similar stories more than a few times before, but seldom so well. Solid acting quite effectively conveying fear, despair, and madness; a crescendo of well paced action, a VERY claustrophobic setting, a compelling twist of the unexplained, all blended together to make a real movie out of something that could have just ended up a clone of many others. I say this even admitting that I am not usually a big fan of movies with premises like this. I really liked descent (the comparison is, in some ways, inevitable), but didn't love it as much as some, and yet I put both these movies on par and rate them highly (for me a 7 is high... the mark of a movie well worth watching). If you are one of those people who loves this type of movie, I suspect you will rate it even more highly than I did.

If it could be faulted it is that the mystery madness (without giving too much away) is never thoroughly explained, and this contributes to a rather notable question mark at the end. It did not bother me... I find the mystery compels us to feel confusion in a way similar to the characters themselves, but for some viewers it will stick in their craw and they will cry foul because the director didn't spell it out for them. But this is a character and survival piece more than anything, so it can be forgiven if it defies leading us by the nose through a neatly sewn up narrative.

With that said, make what you will of it. Sit back with the big screen and good surround sound if you have it, and a significant other maybe, and enjoy.