The Burrowers (2008)

From what I'd heard about this movie, I went into it expecting another Tremors (the original, not the cheesy tongue-in-cheek sequels). What I got was a mix of western and monster movie that actually delivered an enjoyable experience.The characters are believable. The monsters are creepy. And the social commentary is surprisingly effective. It has the usual tale of prejudice and racism you'll often see in period pieces like this, but it doesn't beat you over the head with it and try to get preachy like so many films do.If you're looking for a good monster movie, the Burrowers definitely delivers. It's not a perfect film, but it's well paced, well presented and well worth the watch.

1879: The Dakota Territories. A family of settlers are brutally attacked, the victims either dead or missing; suspicion falls on the local Indians. A rescue party sets out to find the missing people only to discover a race of subterranean creatures that feed on human organs (because—***heavy handed message alert!***—their usual diet of buffalo has been seriously depleted by the white man—boo hiss!).Despite a promising basic premise, I didn't enjoy The Burrowers very much: it's as if the film-makers came up with a good idea and then figured out every possible way to suck the fun out of it. They desaturated the colour, made the action as slow as molasses in January, kept the monsters hidden from view for the majority of the time (not that they are much cop when we do get to see them), and shot almost everything at night so that it was extremely difficult to see what was going on. Then, to round it all off, they gave the film one hell of an unsatisfactory ending, killing off the only vaguely likable characters and closing in a manner that I guess is intended to be daringly unpredictable, ironic, and downbeat, but which only succeeds in being hugely irritating.

Hoping to find his loved ones, a man joins a group of settlers in the Wild West to look for them and stumble upon their abduction at the hands of a vicious race of creatures and must get away before they suffer the same fate.This turned out to be quite enjoyable and entertaining for what it was, a simple creature feature. By being set in the Old-West, it takes the suspense to a rather interesting scenario by utilizing the time-frame constraints in terms of weaponry and knowledge about the titular creatures and really making it about the journey of discovery going on about the creatures and what's going on, which is a lot of fun. The setting is used to fine effect with the time-line war with the Indians that was going on at the time and manages to get a lot of mileage out of that storyline with several big action scenes against the tribes in the area making for a rather cohesive feel about the time and place here being somewhat underused in the genre. This gives it a refreshing taste of originality that comes rather nicely with the impressively utilized creatures, simply by being an original creature in terms of behavior, appearance and general feel in the first place but also settling in with the time-frame issues already mentioned to generate an incredibly chilling and suspense air about it, for the gradual dawning on the men that rogue Indians aren't to blame for the disappearances but rather these strange, fearsome creatures makes this quite suspenseful as all that becomes known about them comes from the interactions between the victims and the survivors and it all feels really fresh and unique. The finale itself is a lot of fun and certainly gets a lot to like about it as well with lots of action and plenty of gore wrapped up in the general dispatching of the creatures, resulting in a fine finish to this. There's some problems, though, as the film is just not all that fun in terms of pace, as this tends to wander around for so much time dealing with the Indian side-plot that it really only leaves the creatures to be present for two or three scenes altogether, really making it tough to get into this as the pace is just so sluggish and weak that there's not a lot of time to dwell on the action to keep things exciting. With the lack of engaging subplots to hang off of, since those as well are sidetracked by the war against the tribe and the inherent stupidity of the cavalry to deal with the issue, this is quite a difficult film to get into and really takes a while to get going. For a final disappointment, the fact that the creatures are difficult, blurry blobs of CGI mess during their scenes really takes the sting out of them a little when it's hard to make out what they are exactly, but all told this is still a fairly fun effort.Rated R: Graphic Language and Graphic Violence.

Here is a cliff notes version of my review....At first I was leery about a Horror movie based in the 'old west', but as I read some of the reviews, I decided to give it a chance. After the opening scene (which had me pondering with what had just attacked them), it dragged for a bit (for me anyways) and I was wondering when it would pick back up again. Had some so-so gun fights, some nice, bloody scenes. But then we finally got to see the 'burrowers' and I was REALLY disappointed. Had they not looked like overgrown, mutated grasshoppers, then I might have liked the concept of an underground, burrowing creature. The story behind the burrowers was just okay at best, with how they feed. Cut them, 'puke' in the wound to paralyze them, then bury them (alive) until they start to rot before eating them, lovely.As my summary states "In a Nutshell".... I gave this movie a 6 based solely on the acting and what blood there was that we got to see, very little. I can't say that I will be adding this to my DVDs anytime.... period. It was okay one time around, but that's about it for me.