9 Miles Down

There's really not many directions you can go with this type of movie. Anybody whose seen the pathetic attempts to reboot The Exorcist (i.e. Exorcist: The Beginning) has seen this premise. I'm not really sure it was a great idea to begin with, and beating it to death isn't helping. Still, this movie's got some going for it. Most of the horror is based on jumpy, sudden moves of creepy imagery. Yes, that's a bit cheap but that doesn't make it less effective. The actors do fine. Not outstanding, but they get the job done.

The story is pretty basic. Security officer Brit McStudly and scientist Dr. Hotpants (ok, not their real names but they were clearly chosen for their looks rather than talent) get stuck in the middle of nowhere in a research/drilling station where things have apparently gotten very real. So the two of them hang out there and one of them may or may not be under assault by demons. There's some vague connections to religious angles and a good deal of psychological tension. Again, decent...but not great.

Would I recommend it? Sure, if you've got nothing better to do. It's not stellar but it's far from the worst thing you've ever seen (then again this is IMDb so I'm sure at least one person will claim it is...and that person will be an idiot).

When you see a 5.5 rating usually you expect near-trash stuff. Well it turned out to be so much better than expected. The strongest thing about this film is, you get what you expect from a thriller (suspense, twists, gore etc), but in a believable way. You don't get bored and constantly you have to question whether reality or insanity is driving the characters of the film. Adrian Paul is above average, Kate Nauta is fine but surely cannot pass as a... scientist. If it was shot with bigger star power, it would get the rate it deserves, but still a 7/10 is fine, considering the budget. Now the 100 people that rated it with 1 or 2, where surely expecting something else. My recommendation: see it

It's one of those movies that had potential but somehow does not really uses it.

The storyline is your typical ingredients for a good psychological thriller/horror movie that constantly has you and the viewer questioning their mind. A man is sent to a deserted drill site in the Sahara desert, where a series of unexplained deaths have taken place. As soon as he arrives, a mysterious woman appears who claims to be the survivor of the scientific team, but who is she really ?

Already at the start the movie just rushes by without letting the atmosphere really do its' work. And as soon as the storyline really gets off, the film deteriorates into one big confusing mess. It just uses the same old "hallucinations within an hallucination within an hallucinations etc." formula over and over again ad tedium.

The female character barely adds anything to the storyline, she's just eye candy and the ending still doesn't explain anything about her.

Shame, because the movie did have some potential. Oh well, still better than Rob Zombie I guess.

The effects, scares, creepiness - all work very well. The "going out of his mind" sequences are all very well done. The dialog his horrendous. Had there been more care taken with this and some better editing this could have easily been a 8 to 9 on the imdb scale. Instead too much focus on the "horror movie" look and feel.

Security representative, Thomas "Jack" Jackman (Adrian Paul) arrives at a Sahara desert drilling facility only to find it abandoned. Upon closer inspection he discovers evidence of some sort of disaster. There are also signs of occult activity.

Jack is joined by a mysterious woman (Kate Nauta) who apparently survived the ordeal. She tells him about the bizarre deaths of her colleagues.

NINE MILES DOWN is an effective psychological / supernatural horror film with slow-building terror and an overall atmosphere of doom. Paul plays Jack with plenty of suspicion and dread.

Much better than expected...