Dead Mine (2012) Review

Dead MineWhen a gang of treasure hunters searching for lost riches on a remote Indonesian island come across an abandoned mine they believe they have finally discovered what they have been looking for.

Forced inside by an ambush the team of soldiers and scientists have no idea what awaits them but excitedly expect to find mountains of gold hidden by the Japanese forces who occupied the mine during World War 2.

With strange noises and even stranger sightings things go from bad to worse when they separate and they uncover the disturbing and horrifying truth behind what evil was taking place in these underground caverns.

Dead Mine

Beset from all sides with their numbers dwindling the remaining few must fight for their lives against a malevolent and seemingly unstoppable ancient force whose long slumber has abruptly ended.Dead Mine

Written and directed by Steven Sheil the man behind cult Brit chiller Mum & Dad Dead Mine is an action horror very much in the same bloody vein as the Outpost series except dealing with the Japanese instead of the Nazi’s.

In fact the similarities in plot, setting and ideas between this movie and Outpost: Black Sun are so many at times I felt like I was watching a remake and considering Black Sun was pretty below par this comparison is not a compliment.

Trying to evoke The Descent in its claustrophobic setting Sheil may not succeed in delivering a very original story but he does dedicate a good amount of time on character development making Dead Mine slightly more highbrow than other action horror’s by having some effective scenes of dialogue about the horrors of war and the lasting psychological effects.

Dead Mine

With good sets and settings and some above average effects the film suffers from below par acting and the cast is quite unbelievable at times with only Sam Hazeldine really delivering as damaged ex-solider Stanley.

The flip side of Sheil’s cinematic coin is the action horror sadly however it is here that Dead Mine fails to deliver. Although throwing in human experiments, fascist fanaticism, mutated man eating monsters and ultra cool looking undead samurai Dead Mine is simply not fun or scary enough and you find yourself bored at times wishing you where watching a Resident Evil movie.

Dead MineDead Mine

Not all bad Dead Mine is equally not that good and is only recommended to connoisseurs of the growing undead military horror genre that has randomly sprouted up in recent years so if you love Nazi zombies then make Dead Mine dead yours.

Movie Rating: ★★☆☆☆ 

Trailer:

avatar

Alex Humphrey

Alex studied film at the University of Kent and went on to work for Universal Pictures in their Post Room gaining an inside look at the movie industry from the very bottom. Constantly writing reviews in everything from local magazines to Hip Hop sites Alex honed his critical skills even spending a brief period as a restaurant critic. Read more

Related post

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.