Dead Mine

Dead Mine chalked up a number of firsts in the region, being HBO Asia's debut original feature, and Singapore based company Infinite Studios' new soundstage facility in Batam, Indonesia being used for the production. Technically, the movie boasts some excellent production values, from stunts to props, sound engineering and special effects to art direction, with the soundstage adding a dimension to filmmaking around the region, with one more slated for Singapore, but as the adage goes, never forget about the story, as it is still king.

The screenplay by Ziad Semaan and director Steven Sheil has an interesting premise, but unfortunately lapsed back to genre clichés. If the pace was kept high, and story tight, then Dead Mine would have been something of a shiny debut for the collaboration between companies and geographies. As an action-horror, it took quite a while for characters to be established around the usual caricatures that pepper the genre already, before the first big set action sequence acted as catalyst for the narrative to move forward, thrusting the entire cast into the titular location. Things slowed down a lot, in between posing, spewing rote dialogue, and traversing the many nooks and crannies of Dead Mine, but when it finally shifted to the high gear, it showed potential that never really reached a high.

Centered around the legend of Yamashita's treasure, the WWII Japanese General who had been rumoured to stash some handsome gold somewhere in the South East Asian region, Sulawesi, Indonesia becomes zeroed in for exploration, funded by corporate rich kid type Price (Les Loveday), who had brought along his girlfriend Su-Ling (Carmen Soo) for the ride, with his engineer Stanley (Sam Hazeldine) in tow, and researcher Rie (Miki Muzuno) to provide the brains for their expedition. Needing protection as they enter a foreign land, they engage the soldiering mercenaries in Captain Tino Prawa (Ario Bayu), with his rag tag team consisting of Djoko (Joe Taslim), Ario (Mike Lewis) and strong man Sergeant Papa Ular (Bang Tigor). My initial fears it may be something like Sanctum, but thankfully this was better, but not without its own illogical moments that exist for plot convenience.

Once they get all chummy and acquainted, the set action pieces are what stands out in the film, aside from the nicely done production sets that made the Dead Mine an incredibly believable location, with two separate tiers being the sandy underground, and the concrete labyrinth above it which suggests the location was more than a potential treasure store, but houses something a lot more sinister, harking back to experiments and torture. There's no lack of gore that adhered to a limit set to keep the ratings as low as possible, so plenty of violence actually happen offscreen, before cutting to show the bloody, gory end result.

And the makeup and costuming department is no slack either, having creature designers work overtime to come up with Mutant POWs, which serve up a lot more terror than the more powerful Imperial Guard type enemies decked in Samurai gear, because as mentioned, the pace could have been kept high to add a degree of urgency, tension and genuine dread to the entire situation. There's plenty of running, and careful treading within the mine, but a little speeding up of lengthy explanations would have been appreciated, and perhaps making it a wee bit more of a fair fight would have sweetened it up a little, than to have it quite one- sided.

Between the cast members, I thought the Indonesian actors triumphed in the film, especially with Ario Bayu's charismatic allure that made it believable that he's the de-facto leader a skilled crew would work under. Anyone who had watched The Raid: Redemption would be familiar with Joe Taslim, and it's interesting now that Hollywood had already come knocking on his door with the Fast and Furious franchise. Unfortunately he has only a bit role here, and doesn't show off his martial arts for his role. Bang Tigor is yet another actor with immense presence on screen, and that's not because he's bulked up.

Still, Dead Mine is a genuine showreel of the kind of production HBO (and its Asia arm) is capable of, with a decent production budget, collaborating with talent in the region, both in front of and behind the camera, and yet again a testament to Infinite Studio's promotion of how a soundstage facility that's really a first of its kind here, could benefit filmmakers to be a little bit more ambitious in telling a story that can be set almost anywhere the imagination dares to venture. So long as it's driven by a strong script, I'm pretty sure we can be set for a lot more variety in the kind of films that could be told in the months to come.

I wouldn't watch Dead Mine in the theater but for on television it's okay I guess. And by okay I mean it just passes, because it's still an average movie. The story was promising but at the end I thought it was poorly executed. For example when you're on the run for evil murderers you don't stop to watch how they butcher somebody, you just keep running. It's small mistakes like that that will bring the movie down. The actors are also not Oscar winners. It's pretty lame sometimes. But the story is still watchable if you have an open mind and are not too critical. With a bit more effort and better actors the movie could have been better but I guess they didn't have the budget for that.

I wanted to watch a horror movie yesterday and after a quick search I chose Dead Mine. Well,the "horror in a mine" concept is nothing rare so I didn't expect to encounter something new plot wise to begin with. What I was expecting to see in an Indonesian B-movie like this were some nice killing scenes and probably some scary or intense moments. Also, most horror B-movies nowadays usually make up for their "bad" plot with lots of blood and gore but that's not the case here. This movie isn't much scary either. Even at moments that the protagonists are hunted down and the watcher should feel the intensity of it the director just failed to make it happen.

Coming to the story now, I have to say it was not that bad.It actually had more potential than it delivered if I can say that. Of course, there are cliché characters placed here and there but it happens to most movies(I even found myself liking the character of Warren's gf) .The plot is quite good at first(not something entirely fresh but decent) and seems like it might lead somewhere good. Still the bad pace, the lack of attention to detail and the horrible 15-20 last mins of the movie where the story goes off track ruin the effort made before.

I know that what I've said so far will probably make you not wanting to watch this movie at all but its not entirely unwatchable. It's still better than many movies out there. So if you like horror movies and got nothing else to watch give it a try. It will be a decent one-time watch, though the last part of the movie might leave you with a bad aftertaste like in my case.

I wish I could say this review contained spoilers because it would suggest there was something to spoil about this film. However, it was so abject that the director and assembeld cast have already done that for you. I won't bore you with the details of the risible plot because there are plenty of other reviewers who have done that. What they have not told you is that this film is a cheat. Yes a cheat. I don't care if you haven't paid a penny to watch it, if you watch it to the end, as I stupidly did, it will cheat you out of almost two hours of your life. You know that when a horror film starts out with a group of six, the monsters/ aliens/ zombies/ evil incarnations et al will pick them off one by one. Par for the course. Except in the final scene, we have one character turned into a zombie/ living dead figure another who submerges into a lake to escape the ridiculous Samurai warriors and a plaintive girl struggling up a beach with the warriors emerging behind her and.........roll the credits. Seriously, as the warriors approach her, it goes to black screen and then credits. So what happened to our hero who dived into the lake, the zombified character and the girl? Don't know. I am only writing this because I feel so angry that the film didn't even offer a cop-out ending. There wasn't even an ending! Did they run out of money? Did they become as bored as the rest of us and thought "Hey what, y'know everyone let's call it a wrap because there's a great cocktail bar near here and it's gotta be more fun than doing this." Cheats!

With so many horror B-movies with the word 'dead' in the title, you could be forgiven for thinking that 'Dead Mine' would contain hordes of cheaply-made up flesh-eating ghouls hunting down a cast list of annoyingly-attractive drama students. It doesn't though. Instead it's more one of those films where a group of surprisingly unattractive platoon of soldiers encounter a bunker of undead Nazis (with disastrous consequences).

And it's always Nazis. It seems you can't tunnel more than two feet below Europe without unearthing a secret World War II experiment of some kind or another. But not here. Dead Mine is completely different. Here we're in an island off the coast of Japan and there isn't a single psychotic World War II scientist to be found. They're Japanese instead. Here, our hapless treasure hunters get trapped in (guess what?) a mine, only to be stalked by what can best be described as Samauri Golum gimps.

It's like if 'Decent' and 'Outpost' had a child, then 'Dead Mine' would be their offspring. Only it's not really as good as either. That's not to say that it's (that) bad. It's no classic (not even a cult classic), but, if you're in the mood, it's watchable enough.

Performances aren't anything special. You'll pretty much guess who's going to die and in which order from the beginning, as most people's motives are pretty self explanatory.

There's not as much gore as you might think, which will annoy some people. The budget obviously didn't allow for that much in the way of special effects.

The story is as you'd expect and starts off pretty well, however the final act gets a little weird and may leave you wondering what happened.

All in all, if you haven't seen Outpost or Decent and you find this film on some movie streaming website and you don't have to pay for it, then it might fill an hour and a half. As I didn't have to pay to watch it I'm being more lenient on it. I wouldn't say it was worth the price of a cinema admission though!

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