Film Review: Unearthed (2007)

Review by: Rick Romanowski
Released: November 2007
Written and Directed by: Matthew Leutwyler

I completely underestimated this movie; I thought that this would be another stupid zombie or plat-thing movie, where the antagonist rises from the ground to cause mass panic and mayhem. For the most part it was true, however, there are not zombies or plants, in fact; this movie is about a Native American myth that was buried under ground after it nearly whipped out the Anasazi tribe. Much to my liking of the plot, it goes further to explain that this "thing" may not have come from this world, but another.

This movie had a very Alien look to it; in fact the creature looked a lot like the Xenomorphs from the Alien films intermixed with the creatures from Feast (2006). There were some great establishing shots including silhouettes and angular shots. The film had three natural colors including green, warm colors and blue colors. However, when the action heightens and the creature attacks, the camera goes from steady shots to shaky hand-held shots and it's hard to see what is going on. Almost keeping you on the edge of your seat and hoping to catch a glimpse of what is going on.

The acting was pretty good and it had some great emotional feeling to it. There were points where the acting was a bit over the top, but I enjoyed the performances by them. I was hoping for a more gradual character development but it went too fast and at the end, you didn’t really care for the characters.

This movie was very well done for what seems like a low budget. This movie also does a great job blinding you with flashlights and glow sticks. There were some great scares that reminded me of Neil Marshall's Descent, as a matter of fact, the cave scenes were a great tribute to that exact film. The directors were heavily influenced by some of the more classic and modern horror films and they did a great job applying those aspects to this movie. Sure there are some pretty cheesy parts, but other than that, this movie was pretty good.

I would recommend this movie to any horror fan that loves creature features, horror-action, and Neil Marshall or Ridley Scott films. I would go as far to say that if you enjoyed Tremors or the Abyss, you would like this film. There are some great scares and I would strongly recommend this movie to any horror fan.