Saturday, 18 May 2013

Dead Mine

Available on DVD & Blu-ray


*


Directed by Steven Sheil




Miki Mizuno
Some films create an impact that can leave you pondering for days after viewing. Dead Mine is one such movie and the question it provokes is just how director Steven Sheil, who directed the chillingly inventive, funny and downright brilliant Mum & Dad just a few years ago could have lost his creative talent quite so spectacularly, helming this tedious production that seems to have wasted nearly every aspect of its (probaby not miniscule) production budget, on a film that could easily be titled Dead Loss.

Set on a remote Indonesian island, it follows a modern day group of treasure hunters as they seek out wartime gold, stumbling across an apparently abandoned Japanese mine from 1945. It's not unoccupied though and within its catacombs are the survivors of wartime experiments: elderly, mutated  and murderous.

Frankly, like any treasure from Indonesia, this is all a bit far fetched. In scenes that are a poor homage to Neil Marshall's wonderful The Descent, as these explorers venture deeper into the mine workings, the rare plot developments are unsurprising and cliched.

To a person, the acting is as wooden as the scenery is plastic. Occasionally, there is some bloody chicanery as a WWII vet proves himself a dab hand with the samurai sword, but other than that, with its simplistic and oft repeated camera angles, the film is dull. One can only hope that amongst this movie's mayhem, Shiel's creative muse has not ended up being incarcerated deep underground. He needs it returned.

Be warned.  Should you watch this movie you run the risk of wasting 90 minutes of your life that you will never get back. Like a deadly disused mine shaft, avoid.

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