The Burrowers (2008)

It is a performances centric movie

best movie i've ever seen.

Absolutely Fantastic

Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.

Reading a chapter in Kim Newman's book Nightmare Movies:Horror on the screen since the 1960s,I noticed a small section of the book focusing on Horror-Westerns.Nearing the end of the section,I spotted a title that Newman mentioned,which sounded like a great genre cross-over of the Western with a monster-movie Horror,which led to me getting ready to track down the Burrows.The plot:The Dakota Territories- August 11th,1879:Returning home, Fergus Coffey discovers that his fiancé Maryanne Stewart has been kidnapped,and that a number of her family members have been brutally murdered.Suspecting that Stewart has been kidnapped by an Indian tribe,Coffey gathers up a gang of fellow outlaws,who soon set off to track down Stewart.Trampling on any Indian tribes near by,Coffey and the gang fail to find any sign of Stewart. Interrogating a number of the tribes people,Coffey begins to hear about a group called The Burrowers.Presuming them to be a new tribe,Coffey and the gang start setting their sights on finding The Burrowers,but soon discover to their horror that they will have to dig deep into the unknown,in order to find the mysterious Burrowers.View on the film:Featuring hardly any indoor scenes,writer/director J.T. Petty soaks in every inch of the outdoor atmosphere,by using vast wide- shots,which along with giving the title a gritty feel,also superbly shows the haunted wilderness that Stewart is tracking The Burrowers in.Along with the epic wide-shots,Petty and cinematographer Phil Parmet show an expert eye in the use of shadows,with the impressive (practical) special effects for The Burrowers being wrapped in velvet darkness,so that they can slowly creep up on the viewer.Keeping the horror nerves shredded with the clever use of shadows,Petty splashes a lavish Western mood across the shaken nerves,by using candle lights and camp side fires to show the deadly terrain that Stewart and the gang are entering.Slowly allowing the haunting horror elements to seep in,Petty sets them against an excellent, rugged Western backdrop,thanks to Petty showing Coffey and the gang desperately try and stick to "the old way" in hunting down Stewart and The Burrowers,with Petty being unafraid to show his heroes in a less-then positive light,as they pull bits & pieces of info on The Burrowers out of the tribes people. Gripping the Western atmosphere with a firm Horror fist,Petty fires off dozens of horror shots,which brilliantly go from being extremely creepy, ( character's being buried alive) to delightfully squishy, (Coffey finding himself surrounded by dozens of Burrowers) as Coffey starts attempting to bury The Burrowers.

This is one of those films where I need to balance how I personally felt about it, with trying to be objective about how well it was made. Something I might add, MOST people do not do.First off, this really isn't quite my kind of Horror film. I DO like the concept of the Horror / Western just fine, so it isn't that at all. I guess what put me off, and again this is just my personal taste, is the overall downer tone of the movie. Like I said in my Summary, it has a pretty heavy nihilistic tone; in my lowly and wretched opinion, there just aren't really any truly 'enjoyable' moments in this movie to be found anywhere.But... you can see that clearly by some of the other reviews and discussion comments here, that many REALLY did like this film. So, I think that if this TYPE of Horror film is your cup of tea, so to speak, then you probably will like it.I will do my best to be objective and give what I feel are the strong and weak parts of the film. Overall, it was technically pretty well made. The look and the photography were very good. I, myself, was kind of put off by some of the dialog and most of the acting. I'm not saying that it was necessarily BAD, but I really didn't like the style that the director brought out in the actors; it just struck me as a BIT amateurish, especially considering the caliber of the actors that were in this movie. I just didn't quite get the feel that the director was really bringing out the very best from these otherwise experienced and good actors, and the net effect, to me anyway, was that the resulting performances were somewhat trite and clichéd. Not horrible, mind you, but I feel that perhaps a different director could have REALLY tightened up the tone and performances CONSIDERABLY, thus much more powerfully engaging the audience and drawing them into the film, instead of giving us the feeling that we were just uninvolved bystanders. I hope that that makes some kind of sense.Again though, I think that it is likely that many people will not be nearly as 'fussy' as I am about this aspect of the acting / directing, and will simply be able to enjoy it for what it is. A moderately scary Horror / Western.The tension and suspense were also very well done (however, I feel that some of the performances detracted from this) The basic story moved along at a decent pace and towards the latter scenes where the monsters really let loose, there are indeed some pretty decent Horror elements.I for one, do not personally care for this kind of casual nihilistic approach to film making, whether it is Horror or otherwise. Just not my kind of thing. So, without entering true Spoiler territory, I will say that with this in mind, I did NOT appreciate the last bit shown at the very end. NOT my thing, DIDN'T like it, and I did NOT think it was cute. What the hell is the purpose served by that...? Is the audience supposed to 'Get Off' on it and derive some kind of sadistic pleasure from it...? Like I say, quite DEFINITELY NOT my thing... But, to others who get 'Into' that kind of style, which seems to be born out by some of the discussions concerning the ending, it appears that a number of people really do like this movie and it's ending and think it's pretty 'Cool'.So, as you can likely tell; I personally didn't really enjoy the film that much. But, I have tried to be fair and balanced, and I've tried to rate it and review it as far as the merits of the film itself, especially taking into consideration that there ARE a lot of people who like movies like this. The overall idea and concept are very good; and perhaps if the director were a bit more experienced and / or talented, and if the performances had been better, then I feel that the movie could almost have been a Classic...I would say from my standpoint that if you are like me, and you prefer a little more cleverness in your Horror films, or perhaps a bit more subtlety or maybe a more nuanced atmosphere, then you may not enjoy the movie that much. BUT... if you just like your Horror movies straight up, and don't mind a nihilistic or sadistic bent to them, then you may very well be entertained by it...

A kind of combination Western/Horror flick, "The Burrowers" is set in the 1870's, as a group including both civilians and military set out in search of a family, who appear to have been attacked by local Indians. We the viewers of course know that there's a lot more to the story than that, and as the search goes along, the group encounters more and more mysterious things including - most strangely - unusual holes in the ground. Some of the movie portrays the tension within the group. The military officer in charge is a bit of a tyrant, and there are portrayals of racism (directed mostly toward Indians, although also toward the cook, who's the only black man among them). But the real issue is what happened to the missing family. Eventually, the searchers find a body buried in the ground, but still alive, and when they encounter an Indian woman the story comes out - the kidnappers are really strange creatures known as "the Burrowers" who emerge every three generations and who bury victims and eat them alive.The premise of this movie isn't bad - and the idea of being buried and eaten alive is enough to make anybody squirm. Promising though it may be, however, this just didn't strike me as a particularly exciting or frightening movie. Part of the problem was the Burrowers themselves. We never really did get a good look at them, and what I did manage to see wasn't very effective in filling me with fear. There's a message about the devastation brought by white settlers to North America - the point being made that the Burrowers used to live on buffalo meat, but once white men had slaughtered most of the buffalo, they turned to humans - which honestly struck me as a strange choice, since in that area at that time, there probably would have been other prey in greater abundance than humans. However, message received: settlers did a lot of bad things to the Indians and to the land and there's a price to be paid.To me, the movie kind of fizzled out at the end. I'm not too sure why the Burrowers would simply disintegrate when struck by sunlight - but that seems to be what happened - and, given that there are surely other Burrowers, the ending doesn't resolve anything. A handful of the creatures die, after most of the humans have already perished. But that's all. There really doesn't seem to be anything more to the story than that. (4/10)

"The Burrowers" may not be on the level of, say, "Tremors", in its placement of a creature feature in a rural type of setting, but it isn't bad at all either. It does sort of suffer from a "been there, done that" feeling most of the time, although the way it puts a horror genre on a classic "The Searchers" type of Western plot is commendable. Where it works best is in the creation of a period feel, from the acting to the few locations used; mostly, it's filmed in the wide open spaces, and establishing that feeling of isolation can always help in a horror movie.A rural family is set upon by mysterious forces, and when only some of the bodies remain, some of their neighbours determine to find the supposed survivors. Among this group of searchers are Fergus Coffey (Karl Geary), who intended to marry Maryanne (Jocelin Donahue of "The House of the Devil"), one of the missing. They assume their people have been abducted by Indians, but are in for a shock when the perpetrators turn out to be something FAR worse.Writer / director J.T. Petty has his movie unfold at a deliberate pace, so some genre fans may grow a little impatient waiting for the good stuff. However, this does allow the actors time to create some well defined characters. Coffey, for one, is a basically good guy, but is shown to be fatally impulsive. Sean Patrick Thomas is quite engaging in the role of Callaghan the cook. Doug Hutchison, best known for playing Percy in "The Green Mile", adds another memorable interpretation of an incredibly unlikable part to his repertoire. Veteran Clancy Brown is solid in a tough but stolid role; however, he disappears from the movie a little too soon. The music (by Joseph LoDuca) is good as is the gorgeous widescreen photography. The creatures themselves don't sport particularly innovative design, but there is at least one entertaining aspect to what they do with their victims. The ending, too, falls short of being really satisfying. Still, Petty and company deserve some credit for preventing it from being wholly predictable, and for their blunt and honest depiction of the in-your-face racism of the time.Taking everything into account, one could do better than this and one could do a lot worse. Horror junkies should find it reasonably entertaining.Seven out of 10.