Unearthed - Movie Review

After watching Unearthed, I am not exactly certain what appealed to me about this movie...but I actually enjoyed it in a morbid sort of way. The dialogue wasn't very good and the plot wasn't very convincing. However, there was just enough cinematic quality to hold my attention. This is the sort of movie that creates enough suspense to keep you interested in spite of the many flaws throughout the film.

Unearthed drops the audience into the middle of a story. We are introduced to the interim Sheriff, a young female who seems to enjoy stiff screwdrivers or what ever other alcohol avails itself to her at any given moment. We find through a rather vague story line and series of flashbacks that Sheriff Annie Flynn (Emmanuelle Vaugier) was involved in some type of incident that resulted in the death of a young Indian girl. That back-story is never really explained, but might have something to do with the drinking issue. The Sheriff responds to a series of strange inter-connected incidents that include a semi-truck accident, dead livestock and an Archaeological dig site. Because the semi-truck contained fuel for the only filling station in miles, several strangers end up stranded at the small service station. These individuals end up fighting for their lives against an alien intruder that feasts on humans.

The plot here is rather simple. It is a typical adrenaline inducing story with very little substance. The dialogue is tired and not very convincing. The characters come from interesting backgrounds but are not very well developed. There is a rather lame attempt to bring dimension to a few of the characters, but it has the flat disconnected feel of most horror films of this genre. The characters really don't stick around long enough for the audience to connect. I thought that opportunities were missed to develop a couple of key characters that may have added to the drama. One character in particular, Grandpa (Russell Means) has the potential to connect with the audience but isn't given enough time or believability to get it done. In the end, we have a cast of characters who cannot deliver much because the writing is simply tepid. The suspense is created out of the situations, which don't always make sense. It seems like the actions these characters took were forced by the writers and not natural actions, in order to set up events the way the writers wanted them choreographed. In short, the entire exercise seemed manufactured.

The cast was actually fairly decent. Luke Goss plays the Archaeologist, whose actions, quite frankly, make the least sense of any of the characters. For a character requiring the amount of education assigned to him by this script, he really seems pretty stupid. Goss isn't very believable in the role, either. I thought Goss had more to offer in Hellboy II, which wasn't that great of a movie (but had a much bigger budget). Charlie Murphy plays the impatient city guy (Hank) and manages to overdo his performance even with his limited number of lines. He tries to be funny but fails miserably. Tonantzin Carmelo performs as a plant researcher named Nodin. She was actually one of the more believable characters in this film. Another character that maybe should have been given more exposure in this film was Rob Horn (MC Gainey). His character had some interesting qualities, but the dialogue assigned to the character lacked any semblance of credibility. Horn is a tough rancher who doesn't like Sheriff Flynn...but ends up giving her kudos near the end of the film...a minor sub-plot that really didn't play out effectively. The rest of the cast was forgettable. Overall, the cast was decent considering this was a low budget film.

I'm not sure what the budget was for this film. It looks to be a fairly large low budget film. The special effects were not phenomenal, but they were better than I expected. The creature in this film looks like a copy-cat hybrid with some elements of Predator and Alien thrown in for good measure. The creature is never really shown in any detail, but the distant shots show some movement that was actually impressive considering the overall quality of this movie. Unfortunately, they may have relied to much on effects and should have spent more time on the script. There were some attack scenes that were bloody, but well done. There were also a couple of explosions thrown in for good measure. A gas stove explodes, but I wasn't very convinced by that particular effect. There were also some crash scenes that were pretty good. Overall, the special effects, although not spectacular, were one of the better qualities in this movie.

Unearthed was rated R by the Motion Picture Association of America. It is a horror film and adequately delivers the blood and guts. The creature is scary enough that it might give younger viewers bad dreams. There was no nudity, no sexual themes and no drug use. A bit of liquor and some strong language combined with healthy doses of gore to get the assigned rating. I would personally suggest using discretion in allowing children to view this movie, but would probably not be opposed to my nine-year-old watching this film. The blood and guts were not as bad as some of the video games I've seen. This film has a fairly young cast with a few old timers thrown in for good measure. A few of the actors in this film have impressive resumes, which makes me wonder what drew them to this particular script. The special effects were good, but almost every other quality of this film was weak. Poor plot, dialogue, believability, pace (although the pace picked up near the end), and character development. These are all issues that I think could have been improved with very little effort. In fact, this movie could probably be redone effectively. I am going to do something different here...I am going to recommend this film (depending on the circumstances) but I'm giving the movie a two star rating. That may seem inconsistent, but sometimes bad movies are worth watching. This is definitely a rainy day movie.