The Burrowers (V)
| release date | April 21 2009 |
| studio | Lionsgate |
| director | J.T. Petty |
| writer | J.T. Petty |
| starring | Doug Hutchison, Clancy Brown, William Mapother, Sean Patrick Thomas, Karl Geary, Jocelin Donahue, Laura Leighton, Robert Ri'chard, Alexander Skarsgård, Brighid Fleming, Galen Hutchinson, Anthony Parker, Christopher Hagan, Stan Burd, David Busse, Jon Krist |
| rating | R |
| trailer 1 | Trailer #1 |
1 Comments
Not too bad but it was just really slow paced. It was a very interesting take on the monster movie because it took place in the wild west. The creatures were cool looking though so ill give them that. This movie would be very good if it wasnt for the slow pacing. All in all not too bad of a monster movie.
Dull Dull Dull
THIS MOVIE WAS AWESOME….ORIGINAL STORY AND SOME OF THE COOLEST PHYSICAL CREATURES IN 10 YEARS…THO IT HAD SOME CRAPPY CG IT DIDNT TAKE WAY FROM THE PUPPETRY
ROB ZOMBIE AND SAW FANBOYS STAY AWAY YOU WONT LIKE IT
thought this was a great little monster flick. shame its relegated to Direct To DVD. Deserves more.
It’s a sorry state of affairs when a film with this much intelligence and originality gets labelled dull when it’s in fact precisely the kind of movie our genre needs more of. Petty makes the movie he’s been threatening to since he started out, beautifully directing his own excellent script and allowing his stars their best showcases in years. Brown, Mapother, Hutchinson and the criminally underated Geary in particular all shine. The creature attacks are brimming with tension and when the violence does happen it comes in often unexpected ways and hits hard. If a movie this striking can fail to resonate with what is clearly a large percentage of the horror audience then it’s no wonder the genre has found itself in such a mess. Film of the year so far by a mile.
Excellent film. I don’t know what everyone is complaining about with the pacing? Geeze, it’s a story, it has to build!
I was enthralled the entire time, and loved it. Especially the extremely downbeat ending.
One of the best this year… now if only I could find it to buy…
I’d eat a western whopper from Burger King and take a better western dump than this so called movie…..
It sucked….the acting(especially the captain) was horrendous. It had me shaking my head halfway through and it was so dark during some of the important scenes…reminded me of AVP Requiem.
Pass this up and watch Eastbound and Down….at least you’ll laugh intentionnaly.
This isn’t a fast paced, moronic, 4 teens stranded in the woods, predictable hollywood horror flick and any intelligent person stalking this film (since it has by no means been thrust in your face) would know this. With that said, The Burrowers is a good monster movie that eschews camp for good old fashioned suspension of disbelief, atmosphere instead of gore, and has some social subtext; in this day and age it’s a freaking freak of a movie and that’s fine.
not too bad but a little slow paced. The characters could have been developed more as well as the history of the creatures.
This is not a movie for the attention deficit suffering, Twitter loving, Fast cuts and flashy lights mesmerized, Instant Entertainment NOW NOW NOW generation. It has characters, development, proper cinematography, an epic western quality, and is genre bending in some ways. So if you think films that are all effects and fast paced, easily accessible, hack and slash and constant mutilation scenes to keep your dwindling attention span; are “Fvckin’ Sw33t DuD3!”… then steer clear. This is a high level of film making, with actual development and tells like a camp fire ghost story that maybe Cormac McCarthy or an old Native American would tell to their children. It deals with racism, Europeans writing the history of America, and forgetting that the true natives of this land had much to teach us. Including how to deal with creatures that perhaps White Anglo-Saxon Protestants would rather forget or blame on silly Native American legend. All the deaths in this film are rewarding, and so is the payoff for actually giving an odd gem like this the opportunity and attention it deserves. Any intelligent horror fan will find more to remember and discuss in this film than 98% of schlock produced today in the horror genre. This film is tragically under rated and much closer to art than most horror ever approaches these days. If you’re turned off by this kind of film, may I recommend a gore-filled, mindless, 90 minute chase scene with virtually no plot and crap acting. Like “Laid to Rest”, which coincidentally also came out this week and will appeal to the atrophied minds of meth-heads and lesser articulate reviewers on this site.
4 skulls out of 5.
when i first saw the photos of the monsters in a fangoria issue, i was really exited to see this, and i watched it right when i got it. and boy, did it really blow!! i have never seen a “good” horror/western, with the exception of tremors 4, and this lives up to it. boring. and doug hutchinson is the king of overacting. not good folks.
i liked this one. reminded me of the boogens alittle. the creature was different and really cool looking. but only because i got to see the whole of it in Fangoria. i wish they would have shown more of it. but still a good movie.
This movie sucked, it was long, and there wasn’t much gore it was like watching a low budget tremors.
The cinematography was amazing and I appreciated the western setting, but the story is so tired, and yes, the pacing is horribly slow. As soon as the film builds tension and momentum, day breaks, and the boring characters are back on their horses. In fact, 75% of this film is just people slowly riding on horses.
The monsters are cool, but sound just like the subterranean creatures in “The Descent.” This flick brings nothing new to the monster genre.
Although not technically a western, “RAVENOUS,” which is also set in the 1800′s wildness, will always be my favorite horror “western.”
I enjoyed the hell outta this. I also got a great look at the creatures ahead of time in Fangoria, and thought they looked amazing! The atmosphere was perfect, eerie and suspenseful, no cheap “Boo!!” scares, which’s a nice change as well. Too bad about the possibility of a sequal bein’ all but squashed, cause this’s a perfect lay up for a killer sequal!! Highly recomended.
A complete waste of an hour and 36 minutes.
There is nothing good to say about this movie.
I wish I could rate it 0/10 instead of 1/10.
This was terrible, beyond boring, creatures looked good, but trust me that was all for this disaster.
Entertaining film and very original.With a bigger budget this film would really kick ass.Hope a sequel develops.Better than most of the DTV in the marketplace.
Not bad western horror film is creative and very nice to look at. The western horror genre still needs a classic to call its own though. Dead Birds is the only true really good movie of the western them to rise above the rest. Entertaining way to kill some time.
I liked the concept of the film and using the open landscape of the old west to tell the story but thought that the movie fell short. It just didn’t feel like it was going anywhere and I thought that Clancy Brown was under used. I know he isn’t like the biggest name in Hollywood, but a known actor just the same, and his character could have been done by anyone else, because of his abrupt departure in the film. Doesn’t mean he had to last till the end, but man he just never got going. Anyway, this isn’t a horrible film, and its cool to see a movie set in the 1800s and be a horror film, you just don’t get that too often. If nothing else to watch and want to kill some time give it a watch, but don’t expect anything too much.
And the winner of worst movie goes too…. ypu you got it.
This piece of shit. LOL first up they fucked up hugely on the back of the DVD box claiming this is 2hr and 4 min film LOL. there bad since it was only 1hr 30 min. Nothing made sense, I was left feeling a bit confused.
The best thing this movie had for it was the creatures and they weren’t really cool enough to make this movie stand out.
Oh well.
I Like Westerns I Love Monster Movies
I really didn’t care for this film.
It was boring, racist and didn’t have cool monsters. The CgI Monsters looked like creations that belonged in a mid 95 film, or from that time frame. Plain old lame film… The creatures looked like demented Grasshoppers.
There are many great things about this film. The Horror/Western genre is a very rare breed, especially “old style” western instead of modern (such as Tremors). The scenery and background in this film was amazing, superbly done. Also, huge points for staying mostly animatronic based with the creatures and using very little CGI. The story was believable and executed pretty well. This films only real hindrance was that it seemed to drag and was very slow placed. Not for your thriller and fast paced slice and dice fans, but a real credit to the Horror/Western genre.
An atmospheric, sometimes intriguing and mysterious western/creature feature that almost plays better as a pure western/mystery than a horror movie, at least for me. I thought the acting was pretty strong from everyone but they didn’t have much of a strong script to work with so no one really out shined others and no one to really root for but they were likable enough. This movie dragged on for way too long and it took them way too long to figure out what was going on because you pretty much figured it out way before they do, so you pretty much wait until they wake up and smell the coffee. It just didn’t have enough action in it so it ended up being very slow and when you finally see what the burrowers look like was a disappointment because it was generic looking cgi and they weren’t scary at all. Overall this had the potential to be much better than it was because it was nicely filmed, acted and had a good atmosphere but everything else wasn’t that special just dull to me. Skip it!
This movie was ok but still not as good as i thought..or worse either. I really expected this movie to really get to the plot fast but i was wrong with the whole “The Indians did it” and such. This was a pritty basic western and if loinsgate films is reading this DONT MAKE ANYMORE CRAP WESTERN HORROR MOVIES! They should not mix the 2 bescause of the crap nthey do to a good western or horror movie. Save some money and dont do another 1.
Very well made movie. The creatures were original and nicely done, and all the actors did a decent job. Movie was slow paced, but it worked well…but apparently not enough tits and explosions for most of the kids who post here. If you’re looking for a gore/action MOVIE, this is not it. If you’re looking for a creepy, interesting FILM, I recommend The Burrowers.
Didn’t care for the story, didn’t care for the characters, didn’t care for the creatures. Just didn’t care at all. Very very boring film. Don’t waste 90 mins.
For an independent movie, it was very well made. It blended western with horror pretty well and it was entertaining throughout.
Score: 8.5
Great blending of the western genre and horror. The concept of the film as well, is genuinely interesting and scary. The cinematography is top notch, which is frankly surprising for an independant movie like this. Great use of the landscape to add to the horror element of the flick.
It is a shame more horror movies set in the West like this are not made.
When what is thought to be Indians attacks a group of families in the night, apparently making off with one family, it is up to four travelers and a host of soldiers to track down these “Indians” and save the family, as well as to exact revenge for their taking. Then, slowly, under cover of darkness it becomes apparent that whatever is taking people in the night, are not Indians, but beasts that the Indians know as the “Burrowers”.
As a somewhat traditional creature hunting humans movie, the Burrowers is actually fairly well done. Featuring Clancy Brown (the Highlander), William Mapother (Lost) and the talented Doug Hutchinson (the Green Mile, Lost), the Burrowers is a rather tight, well-acted small film. In particular, Doug Hutchinson’s mentally unstable Military Commander Henry Victor puts forward an unsettling performance in the scenes that he is in, really stealing away those moments where he is present.
As a movie that features that only come out at night, the Burrowers is able to keep the audience guessing as to what the creatures look like, as well as impart a solid sense of them stalking the search party. The special effects of the movement in the long grasses, as well as the effective use of camera angles that show the viewer just the hint of something at the edge of the periphery, all lend themselves to the overall experience.
I did feel as though the movie ended with little to know warning, ensuring that the film essentially lacks a real climax. How thoroughly the search party fails to stop the threat of the burrowers, as well as the inability of the lone survivor of the original four to explain what has happened will lead to a rather unsettling scene as the credits roll. Having said that, I am not sure that Fergus Coffee could have done anything differently even had he tried to explain.
As an overall film, the Burrowers establishes itself as a solid creature film, featuring some tense moments and enough violence to make people happy. It does explore to a certain extent how these creatures, who are essentially only looking for food, might still be more human than the search party whose violent tendencies and racial prejudices make many of the victims less than sympathetic. It also take a brief moment to explain how the burrowers used to feel exclusively on the buffalo, which of course was hunted to extinction by the white man.
Pretty interesting blend of horror and western, very atmospheric and suspenseful, with a good cast, a worthwhile story and some horribly beautiful creatures. Unfortunately the dialogue often is pretty dull and it’s overall much too slow and lengthy.
If you like Westerns and you like Native American mythology, then this one’s for you. I am neither of those, so it wasn’t for me. Some great landscapes and beautiful cinematography. More details here:
http://thewolfmancometh.com/2010/04/12/the-burrowers-2008/
One hell of a western!
Whatever it was watchable
Really enjoyable film, partly because it’s a different setting than the norm.
Not many Old West/Civil War era themed horror flicks out there—Ravenous and Deadbirds come to mind as other notables. Burrowers throws it’s hat in the ring with a mildly paced creature feature that is long on horseriding and cowboy jabber and short on visible creatures and thrills. In fact, the creatures are mostly camera shy until the finale. The Old West setting for a creature feature is great, and dig getting a Clancy Brown fix, but Burrowers unfortunately is a bit too drawn out and lacking in the horror dept. Thought it was just ok–worth a cheap rental.
An entertaining monster/western/horror/action film with great cast. Though I was disappointed in the end…I hope this means there will be another one.
it was just meh for me ,nothing but another average horror film for me
This movie is proof that I need to stop buying horror movies before I watch them, because now I own this piece of crap. The trailer really intrigued me and made the movie look really good, so I bought it, which granted is my own bad, but seriously >:( TERRIBLE. Talk about a plot that went absolutely no where, I don’t even think the people making it knew what it was about. The ending was a total copout too. LAME.
GREAT MOVIE, Does it deserve the 5 skulls I’m giving it, no, but it deserves more than the 3 skulls it has now, recommended