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yendiMiner's Massacre. 2003. Directed by John Karl Buechler. Written by Antonio Olivas. Released by the ironically-named Wanted Entertainment.
Some movies are simply too bad to give any credit. If you remember, in my review of Venom, I didn't bother with character names, as the entire cast was filled with nothing but archetypes. In Miner's Massacre, we're not even that lucky. I've seen few horror movies filled with less interesting characters than this one, and there's little to distinguish any of the victims from each other other than the order in which they die.
We begin with a lonely cabin in which a young twenty-something has discovered gold. But the gold has a curse associated with it. You see, if you steal the gold from the mine, the Leprechaun will come after you until he has his gold back. Or, if Warwick Davis has other commitments, the Leprechaun will be replaced by a random Old Mad Miner, who's twice as tall and about half as threatening.
As the kid is examining his gold, we see the miner's bones in the midst of a dust cloud, as the curse brings this terrible* creature to life. The kid wanders out of his cabin to take a leak, an important plot point, because he leaves the door open when he heads back inside, allowing the killer to enter the cabin without having to expend precious undead calories opening the door! Instead, he sneaks up behind the kid, hangs him up, and slashes at him with his pickaxe.
We segue to Our Boring Lead Actress, who probably has a name, but is never interesting enough to care about. She gets a letter from her brother, who was the guy killed in the opening scene. In that letter, there's a nugget of gold** and half of an old treasure map, printed in classic "old treasure map" fonts and everything. She shows the map to her Boring Boyfriend Who Looks Like He Should Be in a Gay Porn Movie, and, being typical twenty-somethings, they decide to invite their friends up to the hills for an old-fashioned treasure hunt.
We cut to two more of their friends, who are smoking and talking about sex, so they're clearly going to die. Even worse, one of them is named Axl. They meet a crusty old man (played by genre staple Richard Lynch, who is slumming, even by his low standards) who tells them the story of the old miner who still haunts these parts. As the kids leave, it's clear that the crusty old man has actually been spreading the legend as a part of a tourist trap. The Mad Miner sneaks up on him and axes him, because the curse also includes folks who profit on his name. Or something.
We meet the final two members of the group (having sex in their car, a sure sign that they aren't long for this world). They're less interesting than the last two couples, so let's not bother talking about them any more than we have to. Our six young victims head to the local ghost town, where they search for a bit before finding a local girl (or possibly the town's only streetwalker; it's a little hard to be sure) who provides more information about the mine. The local sheriff stops by and provides a little more history, and then Axl and his girlfriend get into a huge fight (as Axl seems to be attracted to the local girl), and she storms off.
During the sheriff's visit, Axl's girlfriend ended up with that one nugget of gold, so if you think she's going to drive safely all the way home, you've never really seen many horror movies. As she drives away, the Miner jumps out in front of her car, and she swerves to avoid him, crashing into a tree. The miner drags her out of the car, and then decapitates her offscreen.
Meanwhile, the local girl, in between bouts of flirting with Axl, leads the rest of the kids to the cabin, where they find the other half of the Treasure Map, but they don't find Boring Lead Actress's brother (or his corpse). When the local girl finds out that the other characters are here for the mine, she runs away shrieking in terror, possibly taking whatever down payment Axl laid out for her services with her. The remaining folks, without a local guide, get comically lost for a few scenes, using a cinematic technique known as "padding with filler." While the boys bicker, the girls manage to find the mine, because, you know, guys never ask for directions. Or something.
They crawl on into the mine (showing no common sense at all), and somehow don't die in a cave-in. In fact, they find the treasure! And as they do so, we cut to the local girl and her aunt, played by Karen Black, who will take any part you offer her for a shiny quarter. Auntie's a witch and is well aware of the curse, so when she hears what's happening, she runs to the sheriff, who is getting laid, and doesn't seem interested in helping out. Eventually, though, he agrees.
While this is going on, the local girl heads back to the cabin, where she investigates a pot boiling on the stove, and finds the severed head of the first victim of the film! Before she can say, "this makes no sense at all," the Miner appears out of nowhere, grabs her by the throat, and gives her a pickaxe in the stomach.
We cut to nighttime, as the five remaining friends, after a long day of stealing cursed treasure from the mine, are sitting around the campfire. Our Boring Leads wander off to have boring offscreen sex, Axl goes off to relieve himself***, and the horny couple wanders off to have onscreen sex and provide the movie with the obligatory female nudity. Axl hears a noise, and it looks like he's being chased by the Miner, but it turns out that it's just the Sheriff again, getting a kick out of scaring those kids. He warns them that there's danger about, and after he leaves, the sex-crazed guy pulls out his previously-unseen gun.
As they bicker, who should walk out of the fog, but the Mad Miner! He shrugs off the bullets of the sex-crazed guy, and the others start to run away. The sex-crazed girl gets into the pickup truck (which is almost a smart move), and the Miner takes his shovel and throws it at her****. She screams in terror (instead of, you know, ducking), and gets a shovel through the head as a result.
Sex-crazed guy makes it to another car, but abandons his other friends. He soon pays for his selfishness, as the Miner jumps onto the hood of his car, and when he finally gets the killer off the hood, it's too late to avoid crashing into the very same pickup truck his girlfriend died in. The ten-mile-an-hour crash, naturally, leads to a fiery explosion.
The remaining three are rescued (temporarily) by Karen Black, who, in an effort to make the movie last longer than an hour, provides the kids with pointless backstory, this time including a flashback. See, back in 1851, the Mad Miner (who, in the past, was played by Vernon Wells***** ) gets hunted down by an angry mob, featuring TV's Jeff Conaway as their preacher. The miner kills his hostage (who is Conaway's daughter) and makes the usual threats about coming back to get them all. The mob shoots him to pieces, but he still stands up. And then, just to really creep them out, he even bites off his own finger before jumping into the mine! The rest of the mob consoles Jeff Conaway, and Karen Black rests easy knowing that she just killed another ten minutes of screen time.
Back in the present day, we learn that the only way to appease the Miner is to put back his treasure and then blow him up. And now that she's imparted all the useful (and useless) knowledge she has, it's time for Karen Black to die! The Miner makes it to the cabin, and hits her before she can throw an oil lamp at him, lighting her on fire as the kids run away. Karen's flaming form runs into the lake after about five minutes of burning. The Miner does lose a hand in the process, but in the next scene, in one of the lamest moments in cinematic history, we see the Miner take his pickaxe and shoves it into his arm socket.
The two remaining guys lay a trap in the mine (while the Boring Lead Female plays lookout), but the Miner sneaks up on them, and beats them up for a while. Boring Lead Female comes into the mine and lights him on fire, and while he thrashes around, the Boring Leads escape, although Axl sacrifices his life to stay behind and push the Miner into the piles of dynamite.
The next day, the two Boring Leads are waiting by the mine, and the Sheriff comes out and offers them a ride. As they get into the truck, he checks out the mine, and picks up a bag that he assumes belongs to the kid. But it has gold in it! The Miner pops out of the rubble, the Boring Leads scream, and we mercifully fade into the credits.
Miner's Massacre was originally released as The Curse of the 49er, but it sucks by any name. There are some talented people in the cast, but most of them are in minor roles, and few put any effort into their parts. None of the leads bring anything to the plate, no matter how hard they try, and director John Carl Buechler, who is the man behind my favorite Friday the 13th movie, definitely doesn't bring his A-game to this effort. Throw in a by-the-numbers script (by Antonio Olivas, who isn't likely to ever become a household name) and average special effects, and you've got a movie that's simply a waste of time. Give this one a pass, unless you've got a large group who feels like MST3King it.
*But not, I'm afraid, terrifying.
**Yes, the kid had time to hit the local post office before the curse struck. That's because the Mad Miner had to walk uphill in the snow both ways to get back from the Underworld. Roll with it, people.
***Not sure why this movie is so obsessed with having characters feel the call of nature, but it's one of many things that could be considered "quirky" if this film didn't suck.
****This movie was not endorsed by anyone who has ever studied aerodynamics. Or anyone else.
*****That would be the B-movie great, not the baseball player.
Some movies are simply too bad to give any credit. If you remember, in my review of Venom, I didn't bother with character names, as the entire cast was filled with nothing but archetypes. In Miner's Massacre, we're not even that lucky. I've seen few horror movies filled with less interesting characters than this one, and there's little to distinguish any of the victims from each other other than the order in which they die.
We begin with a lonely cabin in which a young twenty-something has discovered gold. But the gold has a curse associated with it. You see, if you steal the gold from the mine, the Leprechaun will come after you until he has his gold back. Or, if Warwick Davis has other commitments, the Leprechaun will be replaced by a random Old Mad Miner, who's twice as tall and about half as threatening.
As the kid is examining his gold, we see the miner's bones in the midst of a dust cloud, as the curse brings this terrible* creature to life. The kid wanders out of his cabin to take a leak, an important plot point, because he leaves the door open when he heads back inside, allowing the killer to enter the cabin without having to expend precious undead calories opening the door! Instead, he sneaks up behind the kid, hangs him up, and slashes at him with his pickaxe.
We segue to Our Boring Lead Actress, who probably has a name, but is never interesting enough to care about. She gets a letter from her brother, who was the guy killed in the opening scene. In that letter, there's a nugget of gold** and half of an old treasure map, printed in classic "old treasure map" fonts and everything. She shows the map to her Boring Boyfriend Who Looks Like He Should Be in a Gay Porn Movie, and, being typical twenty-somethings, they decide to invite their friends up to the hills for an old-fashioned treasure hunt.
We cut to two more of their friends, who are smoking and talking about sex, so they're clearly going to die. Even worse, one of them is named Axl. They meet a crusty old man (played by genre staple Richard Lynch, who is slumming, even by his low standards) who tells them the story of the old miner who still haunts these parts. As the kids leave, it's clear that the crusty old man has actually been spreading the legend as a part of a tourist trap. The Mad Miner sneaks up on him and axes him, because the curse also includes folks who profit on his name. Or something.
We meet the final two members of the group (having sex in their car, a sure sign that they aren't long for this world). They're less interesting than the last two couples, so let's not bother talking about them any more than we have to. Our six young victims head to the local ghost town, where they search for a bit before finding a local girl (or possibly the town's only streetwalker; it's a little hard to be sure) who provides more information about the mine. The local sheriff stops by and provides a little more history, and then Axl and his girlfriend get into a huge fight (as Axl seems to be attracted to the local girl), and she storms off.
During the sheriff's visit, Axl's girlfriend ended up with that one nugget of gold, so if you think she's going to drive safely all the way home, you've never really seen many horror movies. As she drives away, the Miner jumps out in front of her car, and she swerves to avoid him, crashing into a tree. The miner drags her out of the car, and then decapitates her offscreen.
Meanwhile, the local girl, in between bouts of flirting with Axl, leads the rest of the kids to the cabin, where they find the other half of the Treasure Map, but they don't find Boring Lead Actress's brother (or his corpse). When the local girl finds out that the other characters are here for the mine, she runs away shrieking in terror, possibly taking whatever down payment Axl laid out for her services with her. The remaining folks, without a local guide, get comically lost for a few scenes, using a cinematic technique known as "padding with filler." While the boys bicker, the girls manage to find the mine, because, you know, guys never ask for directions. Or something.
They crawl on into the mine (showing no common sense at all), and somehow don't die in a cave-in. In fact, they find the treasure! And as they do so, we cut to the local girl and her aunt, played by Karen Black, who will take any part you offer her for a shiny quarter. Auntie's a witch and is well aware of the curse, so when she hears what's happening, she runs to the sheriff, who is getting laid, and doesn't seem interested in helping out. Eventually, though, he agrees.
While this is going on, the local girl heads back to the cabin, where she investigates a pot boiling on the stove, and finds the severed head of the first victim of the film! Before she can say, "this makes no sense at all," the Miner appears out of nowhere, grabs her by the throat, and gives her a pickaxe in the stomach.
We cut to nighttime, as the five remaining friends, after a long day of stealing cursed treasure from the mine, are sitting around the campfire. Our Boring Leads wander off to have boring offscreen sex, Axl goes off to relieve himself***, and the horny couple wanders off to have onscreen sex and provide the movie with the obligatory female nudity. Axl hears a noise, and it looks like he's being chased by the Miner, but it turns out that it's just the Sheriff again, getting a kick out of scaring those kids. He warns them that there's danger about, and after he leaves, the sex-crazed guy pulls out his previously-unseen gun.
As they bicker, who should walk out of the fog, but the Mad Miner! He shrugs off the bullets of the sex-crazed guy, and the others start to run away. The sex-crazed girl gets into the pickup truck (which is almost a smart move), and the Miner takes his shovel and throws it at her****. She screams in terror (instead of, you know, ducking), and gets a shovel through the head as a result.
Sex-crazed guy makes it to another car, but abandons his other friends. He soon pays for his selfishness, as the Miner jumps onto the hood of his car, and when he finally gets the killer off the hood, it's too late to avoid crashing into the very same pickup truck his girlfriend died in. The ten-mile-an-hour crash, naturally, leads to a fiery explosion.
The remaining three are rescued (temporarily) by Karen Black, who, in an effort to make the movie last longer than an hour, provides the kids with pointless backstory, this time including a flashback. See, back in 1851, the Mad Miner (who, in the past, was played by Vernon Wells***** ) gets hunted down by an angry mob, featuring TV's Jeff Conaway as their preacher. The miner kills his hostage (who is Conaway's daughter) and makes the usual threats about coming back to get them all. The mob shoots him to pieces, but he still stands up. And then, just to really creep them out, he even bites off his own finger before jumping into the mine! The rest of the mob consoles Jeff Conaway, and Karen Black rests easy knowing that she just killed another ten minutes of screen time.
Back in the present day, we learn that the only way to appease the Miner is to put back his treasure and then blow him up. And now that she's imparted all the useful (and useless) knowledge she has, it's time for Karen Black to die! The Miner makes it to the cabin, and hits her before she can throw an oil lamp at him, lighting her on fire as the kids run away. Karen's flaming form runs into the lake after about five minutes of burning. The Miner does lose a hand in the process, but in the next scene, in one of the lamest moments in cinematic history, we see the Miner take his pickaxe and shoves it into his arm socket.
The two remaining guys lay a trap in the mine (while the Boring Lead Female plays lookout), but the Miner sneaks up on them, and beats them up for a while. Boring Lead Female comes into the mine and lights him on fire, and while he thrashes around, the Boring Leads escape, although Axl sacrifices his life to stay behind and push the Miner into the piles of dynamite.
The next day, the two Boring Leads are waiting by the mine, and the Sheriff comes out and offers them a ride. As they get into the truck, he checks out the mine, and picks up a bag that he assumes belongs to the kid. But it has gold in it! The Miner pops out of the rubble, the Boring Leads scream, and we mercifully fade into the credits.
Miner's Massacre was originally released as The Curse of the 49er, but it sucks by any name. There are some talented people in the cast, but most of them are in minor roles, and few put any effort into their parts. None of the leads bring anything to the plate, no matter how hard they try, and director John Carl Buechler, who is the man behind my favorite Friday the 13th movie, definitely doesn't bring his A-game to this effort. Throw in a by-the-numbers script (by Antonio Olivas, who isn't likely to ever become a household name) and average special effects, and you've got a movie that's simply a waste of time. Give this one a pass, unless you've got a large group who feels like MST3King it.
*But not, I'm afraid, terrifying.
**Yes, the kid had time to hit the local post office before the curse struck. That's because the Mad Miner had to walk uphill in the snow both ways to get back from the Underworld. Roll with it, people.
***Not sure why this movie is so obsessed with having characters feel the call of nature, but it's one of many things that could be considered "quirky" if this film didn't suck.
****This movie was not endorsed by anyone who has ever studied aerodynamics. Or anyone else.
*****That would be the B-movie great, not the baseball player.
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Date: 2007-01-30 11:27 pm (UTC)*shudder*