Dead Mine

In an isolated island in Indonesia, an expedition is apparently seeking the legendary Yamashita's Gold. Out of the blue, they are attacked and seek refugee in an abandoned Japanese bunker. Soon they discover that the place was a secret laboratory in the World War II where the prisoners were guinea pig in weird experiments. Further, they are trapped inside with strong and resistant creatures created by these experiments. Will they succeed to escape from the dead mine?

I really do not understand how producers (HBO, not Sci-Fi) can spend their money in garbage like that. The story is a terrible rip-off of "The Descent" and I believe anyone who read it would have at least some doubts to make a movie. The dialogs are extremely poor and the motive of the expedition is a mess. Who are the guys that shoot the expedition? How the Japanese survivor had eaten and drunken along all those years trapped in the bunker with the creatures? How someone could inject a rusted syringe with a sixty and something year-old substance in another person with the intention of healing him? The group splitting to be more easily killed is one annoying clichés. The awful lack of conclusion seems to show the intention of a sequel, meaning more wasted money. Last but not the least; the acting is more dreadful than the creatures. My vole is two.

Title (Brazil): "Mina Abandonada" ("Abandoned Mine")

With so many horror B-movies with the word 'dead' in the title, you could be forgiven for thinking that 'Dead Mine' would contain hordes of cheaply-made up flesh-eating ghouls hunting down a cast list of annoyingly-attractive drama students. It doesn't though. Instead it's more one of those films where a group of surprisingly unattractive platoon of soldiers encounter a bunker of undead Nazis (with disastrous consequences).

And it's always Nazis. It seems you can't tunnel more than two feet below Europe without unearthing a secret World War II experiment of some kind or another. But not here. Dead Mine is completely different. Here we're in an island off the coast of Japan and there isn't a single psychotic World War II scientist to be found. They're Japanese instead. Here, our hapless treasure hunters get trapped in (guess what?) a mine, only to be stalked by what can best be described as Samauri Golum gimps.

It's like if 'Decent' and 'Outpost' had a child, then 'Dead Mine' would be their offspring. Only it's not really as good as either. That's not to say that it's (that) bad. It's no classic (not even a cult classic), but, if you're in the mood, it's watchable enough.

Performances aren't anything special. You'll pretty much guess who's going to die and in which order from the beginning, as most people's motives are pretty self explanatory.

There's not as much gore as you might think, which will annoy some people. The budget obviously didn't allow for that much in the way of special effects.

The story is as you'd expect and starts off pretty well, however the final act gets a little weird and may leave you wondering what happened.

All in all, if you haven't seen Outpost or Decent and you find this film on some movie streaming website and you don't have to pay for it, then it might fill an hour and a half. As I didn't have to pay to watch it I'm being more lenient on it. I wouldn't say it was worth the price of a cinema admission though!

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There is a nice little introduction to the movie (the first scene), which the rest of the movie does not really live up to. Even though there is a scene later on, that almost exactly copies it. Then there is another great shot from above on one of the characters that is really good. You can also enjoy the movie, but I think there was more there. And I'm not talking about the stupid reason our group gets themselves into a "trap" (logic almost never applies when it comes to horror).

I like movies that put different characters together and a sort of survival game begins. This movie is up that alley. Most of the characters are not as nicely defined as they could be though and the movie drags a little bit. Cinematography is good as mentioned, but there could be more, especially if you consider that the movie actually has some highlights.

I wouldn't watch Dead Mine in the theater but for on television it's okay I guess. And by okay I mean it just passes, because it's still an average movie. The story was promising but at the end I thought it was poorly executed. For example when you're on the run for evil murderers you don't stop to watch how they butcher somebody, you just keep running. It's small mistakes like that that will bring the movie down. The actors are also not Oscar winners. It's pretty lame sometimes. But the story is still watchable if you have an open mind and are not too critical. With a bit more effort and better actors the movie could have been better but I guess they didn't have the budget for that.

Here we go again, different location, different nation, but the same WWII bunker story. Instead of the German's and the Nazi's we have the Japanese and the undead Samurai. This in itself should have made for some great and spectacularly gory fighting scenes... but it doesn't.

This isn't just down to the direction and special effects though; the story plays a major part in this disappointment. The writers, Ziad Semaan and Steven Sheil, meanders through the telling. It starts well and then gradually slows and slows. There are a lot of pregnant pauses and translating. All of which isn't necessarily needed. Then by the time, the crap hits the fan and the undead Samurai super-soldiers appear (which is way too late in the film) the director cannot increase the pace enough to re-envigorate the viewer.

The director, Steven Shiel, isn't too bad, though a bit more imagination wouldn't have gone amiss. Everything about the shoot is average. There's no play with light. Even though they're in an ancient bunker the lights work brilliantly - Great Japanese Electronics. Not once do the lights go out to create tension. Unfortunately, Sheil isn't able to create tension or suspense in the light. He could have tried different camera angles, blurred backgrounds with moving shapes-come-shadows. But, no. However, this doesn't damage the film too bad but it would have made it so much better.

The best thing about this film is the strength of the cast. Each of them gives a good performance of their character. Sam Hazeldine is particularly good as Stanley. He has screen presence. You know when he's on-screen and he delivers his lines superbly. He makes his character realistic and you can't help but believe in him. Two couples have some nice chemistry together. One is Warren Price (Les Loveday) and Rie (Miki Mizuno) who are lovers but just think about making the quick buck. The others are, Captain Tino Prawa (Ario Bayu) and his second in command - these two have a fine bromance going for them. The acting does lift the story and the film, but not enough. It's watchable, though, I don't think you'll be recommending it to anyone.

If you've not watched a WWII Bunker horror flick before... There are better than this around to cut your teeth on. Check out the Outpost series. However, if you're all watched up and there's nothing else on (which was my case) then this will pass an hour and a half. But the slowness and meandering story may bore you a little.

Feel free to check out my Absolute Horror list-come-chart to see this ranks or to find something to new to view.