The Burrowers (2008)

Bad Acting and worse Bad Screenplay

An Exercise In Nonsense

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

Close shines in drama with strong language, adult themes.

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.

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)

Strange movie. It's nearly Tremors, nearly Ravenous, nearly The Descent and nearly interesting.But three 'nearly's' ain't getting it done I'm afraid.Set in 1879 – 100 years before Billy Corgan found a year worth singing about – The Burrowers refer to… things, that beset a group of soldiers, civilians and cowboys searching for members of a missing presumed taken by Indians in a violent raid.The civvies have a more direct interest in finding those missing, but it seems the soldiers are driven by more sketchy motivations. It is after they indulge in some basic prolonged torture that the civvies decide to break and head off alone deep into Indian territory.It is here that things finally get to the point – and by that I mean the plot starts dealing with the events and 'things' referred to on the DVD cover. Only took half the film to get there.As the searchers forge ever onward they begin noticing shallow but obvious holes in the terrain, unnatural looking holes, near one of these a young girl is found buried in the dirt – literally buried – only her scalp barely shows on the ground surface. Stranger still the girl is alive, though catatonic, and she is immediately sent back to the town with a young boy as her chauffeur.The remaining crew move forward, by this stage as confused as we are. Until they finally meet those responsible for the holes, after this everything quickly falls into place, meaning the film can be wrapped up similarly swiftly.The design of the 'burrowers' is only so-so, they don't really look that effective which explains also why they are not shown on screen mostly as glimpses and in the fringes. In fact the director showed more close ups of various insects in the first hour than the titular creatures.I kinda liked the brief National Geographic explanation behind the burrowers living habits (think spiders) and I kinda liked the pacing near the end. But really this is like a Dean Koontz book, come up with an interchangeable monster/creature/virus/'insert scary thing X', spend two thirds of the book lazily setting the scene, then have the final third about dealing with 'X'.It's all quite straightforward and not quite worthwhile.Final Rating – 5 / 10. A brave, sincere and futile attempt at creating an original horror movie that doesn't work because even in small borrowings the original sources are obvious (and better).

I love these quality B-flicks and I always get excited when I find a new one. Now I just found The Burrowers and from the cover and some stills I even started having expectations. Furtunately this is not bad at all. It's actually a movie of very good quality. Where most B-Movies tend to be lashed-together, obviously realized for some profit exclusively, apparently some are crafted with love. The small details, the refined tone, quality cinematography and gross creatures will get you over some flaws in the script. But the fact, that it takes it's western side serious and manages to score in that genre too, makes Burrowers a cool feature, absolutely worth your time. 6/10