Tommyknockers

After participating in a bank robbery, a group of outlaws hides out in a remote town to decide their next move when they're suddenly confronted by a race of humanoid creatures known as Tommyknockers revived from a local gold mine and must band together with the remaining townsfolk to survive.

This was quite the fun and solid creature feature. One of the better elements of this one comes from the rather fun setup that gets this going rather nicely. The initial discovery of the creatures inside the mine through the accidental discovery of the gold supply stored there and being released through the excavation of the gold provides a decent enough explanation to have the creatures be released while also offering up enough of a reason for why no one knows anything about them. The secondary subplot involving the posse setting out to find the robbers who have control of the money from inside the bank and finding them in the same town where the creatures are decimating the local population offers quite an enjoyable starting point for this one. As well, there's also the rather fun creature action built up from this setup. With their humanoid stance and appearance, they look impressive enough without taking their claws and teeth which manage to allow the proper kind of graphic gore in the Action sequences. Those allow for a solid series of encounters in the various recesses of the town with a lot of sequences in the local bar or out on the streets of the town which offers some stellar scenes overall. The frantic final half, featuring a slew of different encounters within the town as the creatures launch an attack on the townspeople while they race to get the creatures stopped gives this several solid action scenes in the mine which combine to give this a lot to like. There's not much to dislike here but it does have some minor issues. The main drawback with this one is a rather underwhelming middle half where it tends to stumble around to several different sidestories without doing much of anything with the main characters. Since it introduces a slew of characters in the residents of the old town that got robbed, the series of characters on their trailer to stop them, and then the resident of the new town they arrive at, everything tends to be dropped to a standstill that halts the momentum of the film quite early on. There's also the issue of what we know about the creatures being quite limited even though that's clearly not that important due to no real reason who would know anything about them but can be seen as something holding it back for some.

Rated Unrated/R: Graphic Violence, Graphic Language, Bried Nudity, and a sex scene.

I can unequivocally say Night of the Tommyknockers is Mahal Empire's greatest movie to date. I say that as someone who really enjoyed their previous outings, including Party Bus to Hell, Attack of the Unknown, Death Count, and Bridge of the Doomed.

There is a real dearth of Western-Horror movies but Night of the Tommyknockers is a quality addition to the genre. It has a real western feel, but it doesn't skimp on the horror. Fans of the genre will be very pleased with the result.

Robert LaSardo (CSI Miami) and Richard Grieco (21 Jump Street) put in outstanding performances as outlaw bank robbers while Hollywood legend Tom Sizemore (Blackhawk Down, Heat, Natural Born Killers) shines as the local lawman. Shout out to Indie Horror staple Shawn C Phillips for his great performance in Tommyknockers. Always love seeing Shawn show up when we're watching a movie.

The practical effects in Tommyknockers are top notch. The creatures look fantastic. Mahal Empire movies have higher budgets than your average indie horror movies, and it shows. Most of the action takes place at night, but this movie is well lit and you can always see what is happening. Too often lately movies are so dark it's impossible to follow what is going on, Tommyknockers does not make this mistake. The sound mixing is excellent, and volume levels are consistent, I find too often with Indie Horror I'm always adjusting the volume but again, Mahal Empire movies have more of a big budget feel and are very well polished when it comes to lighting and sound. Director Michael Su (Death Count, Bridge of the Doomed) really outdoes himself with Night of the Tommyknockers, which I think is his best effort to date.

If you like western movies and horror, you'll definitely want to check out Night of the Tommyknockers!

Tons of micro-budget westerns flood the DTV space yearly, most best left unseen, but sometimes worthwhile fare emerges. The itch for more horror-westerns led me to Night of the Tommyknockers. Not good but not a disaster; it's under 90 minutes and doesn't shy away from monster gore once the bandits-vs-lawmen first half leaves its outlaws in a gold-rush ghost town besieged by gnarled Descent rejects.

If you can accept the meager production values this kind of film must scrounge up today, then this is an overly-talky obviously-cheap yet still enjoyable creature feature. Just mind the acting; although even that in regard, the actual character dynamics were fun in spite of the bad-to-average performances but I got to grade on a curve considering how rare horror-westerns are, let alone ones as relatively focused and action-filled as this.

So I like catching bloopers in movies! This movie of course is set in the 1800's. There's a scene where they're in the dark and use a Dietz oil lantern WITH the Dietz decal on it!!! Ok oil lanterns didn't exist until 1935 and vinyl decals didn't exist until 1943! Their lines were poorly spoken and I mean poorly! I didn't care about the tommy knockers costumes also stupid looking! I only watched because I thought it might be related to Steven King's Tommy knockers like a prequel, boy was I wrong! I wonder if this is plagiarism? It is a b rated movie after all. It only cost about $4 to watch....

Oh my, I can't believe I wasted my time on this. The intro was just PAINFUL ... I have seen better acting at the community playhouse downtown.

Then the meat of the movie started. I am not sure what was worse, the absolutely waste of a script, the poor timing of the directing, the even poorer camera work, or the even worse scene staging.

Sad too. It seemed a few of the actors actually had some talent and were hoping to make a go of it. And unlike many low budget films, this one actually sported more than just 4 people for the entirety of the movie. There were actually moments of good acting, but a VERY few bright spots can't make up for the rest of the problems.

Hope no one was hoping this film was gong to be their 'big break'.