The Mine

I love horror movies and honestly, I'll give almost anything a chance which means I have watched some truly awful movies. Abandoned Mine is definitely not even a candidate for that list. It's not a great movie, but it's far from terrible. I felt invested enough to continue watching until the very end.

Sure, it's cliché. But I think the movie goes out of its way to acknowledge that. It has a generic title. It takes place on Halloween. The characters tell a scary story in front of the haunted, abandoned, so-scary-oh-god-no mine about its past on the not quite 100 year anniversary of the tragedy that caused it to be haunted. So, I don't think the movie's really trying to take itself all that seriously.

The actors are actually fairly strong for a movie like this. Alexa Vega is always a treat and though she's playing the female character who's afraid of everything, it's hardly ever grating which takes talent. Reiley McClendon straddles the line between jerk and jerkily charming for most of the movie. Adam Hendershott plays a generic, ex-jock character and does it well though his freak out at one point is actually quite good. Charan Prabhakar plays a character that is a stereotype but is also very aware of that; his deadpan delivery of some of the more outlandish lines really sells the character as the best thing about the movie for me. Then there's Saige Thompson. She's not a bad actress but she's definitely the weakest of the group, her big, dramatic moment being the worst in the film.

The main thing the movie does wrong is abandon the majority of its ambiguity near the very end causing it to lose whatever originality it had.

Some people amaze me when they review a movie that they only watched for 15 minutes and automatically rate it the lowest possible score. No way this is a 1 out of 10. It's not even a 3.6 out of 10, which is its current rating. I give it a solid 6, give or take 1 point depending on how graphic you like your horror films to be.

There's no need for me to give the plot outline, it's already been given. For a low budget film, the acting, the lighting, the setting and the story are all above par. And let's not forget it is a bit claustrophobic at times as well. Not as much so as THE DESCENT, but still very good for the small amount of money involved. Again, I would like to give props for the lighting. For a movie like this, set inside an abandoned mine, the lighting couldn't have been any better. Great job all around. Not violent, but very well paced, acted and directed. If nothing else, great fun for the entire family. Kid-friendly stamped and approved.

A mine is reportedly haunted by one of the men who used to work there and his two daughters, who were killed in front of him. Skeptical about the hauntings, five friends decide to take a trip down into the mine as part of their Halloween outing, but when strange happenings start going on, the group members start to realise that maybe there is more to the story than what they originally thought.

Abandoned Mine is pretty poor in every sense of the word. Poor plot, poor story and poor execution. The only decent thing about it was the acting as this wasn't that bad at all. Unfortunately you can only go so far with only decent acting when everything else is so poor and even an experienced actor would have struggled to make this movie more interesting.

For a reportedly creepy horror it really isn't very creepy at all and that's a bit of a pity really because the setting of an abandoned mine is a good one. You just have to see movies such as The Hills Have Eyes Part 2 and The Descent to see how movies where the main setting - or part of one - is underground and can work really well in bringing an uneasy feeling to the audience. Abandoned Mine doesn't do that, though, and instead of being a creepy horror it just turns out to be a Jackass type of movie.

The twist of the movie (if it can be called that) can really be seen coming very early on as well, especially given what we already know about the group members. I have seen much worse but that doesn't mean that this is any good.

Definitely wouldn't recommend watching this one.

Basically, you can't get any worse than this. Acting is mediocre at best. Predictability factor was outrageously easy to see what's coming.

Complete waste of time to watch!

This film is massively mediocre. Now that is obviously not a compliment, but it doesn't have to be an insult either.

It has elements of recovered cam shots, but is not a found footage film. It has some elements of horror, but is not scary enough to disturb even the most highly strung small child. It has "coming of age" elements, but you don't really get to know the characters or invest in them enough to care. It's quite cheap, but not funny or "so bad it's good"

This reminded me of a cheaper version of a Dawson's Creek Halloween episode. Which is... OK.

Would I pay to go and see a Dawson Creek Halloween rip off? Hell No! But if it was on Netflix and I was desperately trying to avoid doing some work I might put it on. Actually I did, and it was... OK