Unearthed

source: Unearthed

In this film Emmanuelle Vaugier does her best impersonation of Erica Cerra (the deputy sheriff from the Eureka series) as the sheriff of a small American town. So you have some Amerindians, some annoying hillbillies, farmers, truckers, etc, to which you add some attractive tourists and the ever present "jerk from the city". What else is missing? The monster! The film actually started pretty good. Obviously low budget, I didn't expect a good monster, only a well presented state of tension. And it did present well. At about half the duration of the movie I thought it is going to be a more serious Tremors, which I also liked. And in a sense it was, only it lost itself in senseless gore, inept "scientific" explanations and silly Indian legends solution. Bottom line: watch the first half, until the monster is going on the extended killing spree, stop the film, then think all day long about how it should continue. Then get intoxicated and watch the end, laughing your posterior off.

First the good news, the movie is only 93 minutes long. Now the really good news, you can turn it off after the first half hour and spend the other hour watching your clock tick. It will prove more interesting than finishing "Unearthed". Scenes with a frantic wobbling camera that are illuminated only with flashlights and glow-sticks, will leave you in the dark about what is going on. Not that you will be missing anything, because you've seen this monster on the loose plot dozens of times already. It goes something like this, people and animals killed, more people killed, monster killed....................................... end of story. - MERK.

I usually don't post reviews but since there was no comment yet about the creature I had to make one.And well people who already watched the movie may learn something about the creature they didn't know. I found the movie a bit boring, it was dark all the time and the action scenes felt like a movie trailer, a flash of action here and there, a lot of it but always very fast and where it seems like you miss half the action. Something just didn't "work" in this movie for me, I have nothing against simple stories or the characters or the acting or even the creature FXs but the movie in the end isn't that good sadly. !!! HUGE SPOILER !!!! The whole concept of the creature has been entirely copied from a tabletop game called warhammer 40'000 made by Games Workshop.I'm not an expert considering I only read the "tyranids codex" for fun but I can tell you that the creature is some kind of "Genestealer" from the Tyranids alien race in that game (there are many different kind of tyranids and it may be closer to another unit type) I don't know if the movie producers ever mentioned any link to this but it's obvious, the "gene collecting" goal the scientist explain in the movie, the creature design which looks exactly has the miniatures in the tabletop game and even the burrowing worms that are shot by the alien by some kind of bio-gun.

Let me preface this review by saying, while there may be some plot spoilers contained below, I doubt that if I transcribed the script word-for-word I would spoil the movie for anyone. The director/producers managed to spoil this movie quite well on their own. OK, a movie about an archaeological dig unearthing some ancient creature that starts killing people stranded in the area. Certainly nothing original there, but, ya never know. The director may come up with some new twists. Well, if the director did, he did an impressive job of not sharing it with the audience. Nor did he make any attempt to reveal whatever he had in mind for tying all the unidentified story-lines behind the characters together. Characters are barely introduced at the beginning of the movie, and there is but a hint of character development for anyone but Sheriff Annie. As far as the filming goes, I've seen camera phone recordings of higher quality than was used in this movie. Apparently, the director dealt with a shoe-string budget by making extensive use of shaky out-of-focus shots whenever there's action, the monster attacking people, people running, caves collapsing, etc. And in today's film-making age, where night shots are shot in daylight/artificial light and then darkened on a computer in the editing room, this film nonetheless shoots it's night scenes outside at night using cheesy night-vision filters. How innovative. Let the audience barely see what's going on so they can feel like they're truly in the dark. The computer graphics are state of the art....were this still 1992. It's blatantly apparent that one of the director's favorite films is Alien3, as the monster graphics look like he pulled old footage of the alien scampering along the walls from the David Fincher film. And worse than that, he copies the scene in which the alien moves its face close to Sigourney Weaver by having Unearthed's monster, dripping goo from its mouth and all, move its head close to the face of a cringing Tonantzin Carmelo (who is covered in radioactive muck, yet never seems the least bit bothered to be so). What's really sad is, the real creature apparatus which is used in only a handful of shots did look well-crafted. However, most of the scenes of the creature are such pitiful CGI, they make made-for-Sci-Fi channel movie special effects look good. Had any effort been made to develop the characters, explain what was really going on with them early in the film, and some legitimate filming done instead of rough-shod disjointed quick cuts and camera angles, this COULD have been a decent film.

Alien monster terrorize people in an isolated American town.Sheriff Annie Flynn(Emananulle Vaugier)try to solve the case.Swedish DVD cover says a mix between Neil Marshalls Masterpiece The Descent&cult classic Alien.I say no,no,no...only thing they have common is some parts in the film is in a cave and the monster look reminds in a cheap way of the Alien one.I didn't like it for sure,it didn't give me anything.To be fair I first watched an hour some days ago and last half hour today.Acting is not the worst I seen,some pretty fine.Emanuelle Vaugier did her work good.The movie has no scary parts and the monster looks just silly.Last half hour was better than rest of the film,but I do not recommend it.By the way in Sweden its called Deep Fear.I give it 2/10.

Kind of a bit confused by this one, as the 2006 films were so much better and seemed to push the boundaries of independent horror. So far, I've viewed "Borderland", "Deaths Of Ian Stone" and this little stinker, yet none have had much of an impact on me, especially not this one... Besides the obvious sub-par special effects, I found the dialog to be incredibly weak and amateurish. The acting (for the most part) is not that bad, but when talented actors are forced to deliver such unintelligible lines, you begin to feel a bit sorry for them. I found this most offensive when veteran character actor M.C. Gainey was on screen, I've always respected his talent, which is horribly wasted here. As for the special effects... What can I say? They suck, and suck real bad at that... Crappy CGI mixed in with shaky camera tricks and quick cuts, make it next to impossible to see what is supposed to be taking place, and the story doesn't fare much better. On a good note, much of the (daytime) cinematography looked above average and added a grainy feel to the desert scenery. I believe director Matthew Leutwyler will have a bright future as long as he leaves the writing to others, and throws away his CGI software. After-all, no-one is frightened by Dr. Zoidberg...

I went into this film despite the bad press it was getting because I liked Deada nd Breakfast and I like Emmanuel Vaugier and I'm a big fan of horror flicks and horror fest in general. But this film felt so amateur poorly written, filmed, acted, constructed. The film is confusing and pretty plot less and features some of the worst CGI I've ever seen it looks like the cgi beasties of the castlevania Nintendo game. I usually am open to pretty much everything. But you have to drawn the line somewhere and this film if you can call it that is far past it.Do yourself a favor and miss this so the once promising director could try and make up for this attrocity.

Unearthed