Month: January 2010

Regardless of the sparkling buzz, I have been avoiding THE BURROWERS. Yes, I'm shallow, the DVD case turned me off and I feared it was going to be some dusty, sepia-toned worm-run-amuck movie (although come to think of it, that doesn't sound so bad.) What finally piqued my curiosity was learning that it spawned from the mind of J.T. PETTY who made the compact, claustrophobic and marvelously against the grain MIMIC 3: THE SENTINEL. (Add that fact to the film's current hand reach availability on Fearnet and my being semi-voluntarily confined to an ALF snuggie and you have yourself a sealed deal.)

Hooray for my noodle limp resolve, THE BURROWERS is worm free, my new crush JOCELIN DONAHUE (THE HOUSE OF THE DEVIL) is in the first scene (though not much more), and rather than being crusty and dusty, it's a beautifully shot film that answers that question nobody ever asked, " What if TERRENCE MALICK directed ALIEN?"

Now before you slip on your Sketchers and run to the video store, I mean mailbox, I mean computer or remote (if you should also have Fearnet) let me warn you that this movie paces itself much like a classic western so it requires a certain amount of patience. This means no squirmy monster dessert until you've eaten all your peas! The peas here are pretty tasty and fortifying though, you might just like them.

When a frontier family disappears in the dead of night it's reckoned by all that it must be the work of Indians. A search party is formed that includes a young Irish immigrant named Fergus (likable MIMIC 3 star KARL GEARY) whose heart belongs to one of the missing. As the group of men ventures further into the wild they discover that their assumptions are way off and that something sinister is UNDER foot.

As if creatures that poison and then bury their victims underground only to chomp on their "soft bits" later were not bad enough, our rag tag cavalry is plagued with willful ignorance, covert agendas and a douche-y guy who purposely mistranslates the native tongue to suit his own needs. Yep, a bit more effort in the communication department may have saved some lives here folks, that and a smidge of respect for the land. See, the "burrowers" used to dine on buffalo but with no more buffalo around eating humans is their only recourse. Don't judge, desperation can make you eat anything; how else can you explain airplane food? (ba-dum-bump!)

THE BURROWERS slowly unspools the suspense, like the aforementioned ALIEN it mischievously plays with darkness and shadow to keep the viewer on edge. There's also a rather compelling drama here about a group of men playing king of the hill to their own detriment. It even ultimately touches upon accepting loss and the fact that some things just can't be made right again thanks to the larger powers at play. It also stars the one and only CLANCY BROWN, maybe I should have mentioned that in the first place.

I'm on board for any horror movie (or psychological thriller) that takes place on a boat. Tell me that the movie in question is directed and written by CHRISTOPHER SMITH, the guy responsible for both the too often miscounted CREEP and the gruesomely hilarious SEVERANCE, and I'm that much more excited. I'm not sure I understood everything that took place in TRIANGLE and yes, there were moments where I found the film, due to its construction, to be teetering toward tedium but what do you know, it's quite a hard film to shake out of your head.

TRIANGLE introduces us to Jess (MELISSA GEORGE) a young mother of an autistic boy who accepts the offer to take a boat trip with a potential new beau and his buddies. Soon, an ominous storm kicks the crap out of said boat and the survivors are forced to take refuge in a seemingly abandoned ocean liner where the only R&R encountered is "run" and "repeat"(thanks to a masked assailant with a gun.) Sounds simple, but trust me it's not. If there's anything more complex then the ocean liner's maze of corridors, it's what's going on in Jess's fractured psyche. Girl brought baggage.

SMITH smuggles on some familiar asides (including an eerie encounter with a room marked 237 courtesy of THE SHINING), but there are several eye burning visuals that are as fresh as they come. Without ruining anything (you'll notice I did not include the film's trailer here; it's a exercise in T.M.I.), I'll tell ya, one shot, which involves one of the films victims crawling through a mass of past victims, is a real brain-rattling stunner. SMITH can be a bit of a magpie, collecting usable bits from past films but he admirably twists them into forms you have not encountered before more times than not. The whole bright, blanched look of the film is a welcome respite from the usual gritty grunge.

Since I don't want to speak too much of the trippy, ROD SERLING would be proud course TRIANGLE ends up taking, let us talk a moment about MELISSA GEORGE who you might remember from 2005's AMITYVILLE HORROR and 30 DAYS OF NIGHT. I admit that my first thought upon seeing her on screen was "Oh, RADHA MITCHELL must have been too busy that day." But damn if GEORGE doesn't deliver one of the best performances in a horror movie I've seen all year. She takes a difficult character, one that's almost frustratingly obtuse and somehow you don't want to leave her side. In many instances her facial expressions are all the audience has to go on and director SMITH uses them to his advantage repeatedly. Whatever TRIANGLE's faults (it does have its lax moments) it showcases an absolutely winning marriage between director and star.