Monday, October 29, 2012

The Mine - Review

The Mine
(2012)
Thriller
1 hr. 35 min.

Rated: PG13 some scary images, brief language
Grade: C+

Director: Jeff Chamberlain
Writer: Jeff Chamberlain
Stars: Alexa Vega, Reiley McClendon and Saige Thompson | See full cast and crew

Five school friends seek adventure on Halloween night by exploring a legendary haunted mine, only to discover to their horror that the ghostly rumors may be true.

The premise for this Utah-made film, The Mine, is a tried and true Halloween thriller/horror formula, very familiar but also very effective.  Even though it could have and should have gone a little further than it did, I still give it a thumbs up for what it is attempting to do, provide a 'Family Friendly' Halloween horror experience and does, for the most part, accomplish it's goals.

Writer-director Jeff Chamberlain eschews the “Hollywood establishment" morals asserting that a movie can attract a teenage audience and entertain them without all the blood, gore, foul language and sex so prevalent in such films. There is some brief language but no 'f' words nor are religious names used as expletives. Yeah!
The Mine, relies on Hitchcock-style techniques and suspense to create the adrenalin rush scares and to keep audiences on the edge of their seats. In one scene that will give any claustrophobic the creeps, the teens wriggle their way into a tiny tunnel in the dark, dank mine, not knowing what is at the other end or if there is an end, or if the tight squeeze will narrow to the point of trapping them (it gives me the creeps just writing about it, remembering how not that long ago some friends did this very thing at another location in Utah and one of the guys got stuck with his head down and his feet up and his friends couldn't pull him out. Efforts were made to rescue him but he died before he could be pulled free. Gross! What a horrible way to die.) The creepy moments in The Mine are earned, the film doesn't rely on the the standard jump-scares (accompanied by a blast of loud jarring music).

Basically five small town college-age friends plan a Halloween night together at the site of a supposedly haunted, abandoned mine. Alpha male, ex-jock Brad, promises the girls that they're not actually going inside they'll just sit around the fire roasting marshmallows and smores and talking, but when it starts to rain he convinces them to inside the mine until the storm passes. Soon, the group of five becomes four, and then three, and so on and so on. 

The main theme or the story revolves around Brad’s relationship with his girlfriend, Sharon, and her best friend Laurie (Brad's ex-girlfriend) and his resentment that Laurie has escaped their small-town life to attend college at Stanford. It is this background story that enables the filmmakers to develop stronger characters than you usually get in this genre. Although there are not as many scares as one would expect or that should be they are earned without all the usual slasher type gore, and there are some surprising twists and turns at the film's climax.

Plot
Brad and his small-town friends decide on an overnight Halloween adventure with a visit to the “haunted” Jarvis mine. The past and present intersect as the five young adrenaline junkies defy the angry spirits of a family murdered exactly one hundred years ago.

Brad has organized the trip as a last-ditch attempt to hold onto relationships that are on the verge of dissolving as the young people go their separate ways. He plans to stay in “Happy Valley” and he sees those closest to him slipping away. Laurie his ex-girlfriend is moving on to medical school and brings her brainy friend Ethan (from India) to the party. Sharon is Brad’s current flame, but she wonders if he still has feelings for Laurie.

Jimmy is the loveable jock and Brad’s longtime sidekick. He’s along for the wieners and soda, and because well, he always goes where Brad goes.

Once in the mine, bad things happen and Brad’s best-laid plans go awry, leaving the adventurers trapped without escape. But are their misfortunes purely accidental? Are there supernatural forces at work? Or does a monster lurk in the darkness?

As one “accident” follows another, the friends begin to doubt their rational thoughts, with terrifying results.
  
Just when you think you’ve figured out THE MINE, it presents plot twists and turns that surprise and amaze you. One by one you’ll learn most –but not all of the secrets of the friends, as well as…of THE MINE. -- From The Mine's official website

In this video writer-director Jeff Chamberlain revisits the mine with his daughter and Ben Hansen of The Si-Fi Channel's "Fact or Faked".

Cast
Alexa Vega                Reiley McClendon       Saige Thompson
 Sharon                                Brad                               Laurie        
             Charan Prabhakar    Adam Hendershott
         Ethan                                  Jim

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