Beneath

My quick rating 4,9/10. The trapped in the coal mine flick is back. Being trapped with "something" is a common theme for horror/thriller movies to use so can't go anywhere really on originality. Ther are a few good things about this movie even though it is straight formula. The most important is the way the focus is back and forth between something being down there (demon, spirit, etc.) or just hallucinations due to lack of oxygen and the miners losing it mentally. Throughout he whole movie you will be wondering which it is (and no i am not saying). The other plus is the fact that the use of lighting is well done to only allow the lights the characters have illuminate the scene. That being said the movie spends a solid 10 minutes of an 80 minute film in complete darkness. Literally. This doesn't mix too well with often entirely to shaky footage when you can see. This major distraction is unbearable at some parts and takes away greatly from what could've been a good flick. Still worth seeing but I suggest on cable.

Beneath starts off slow and steady but the ride is worth it. It's not your typical dumb for the masses movies. It creeps in on you, the slow pace will deter a few viewers same goes for the unfairly low ratings and review, but it will reward the ones that stick with it.

Reminiscent of other claustro-horror like "The Descent" or "The Cave", it manages to create it's own thing without just blatantly copying what others did before.

Some the the actors performances where disappointing but the story, script and good photography makes up for it. The carefully crafted mixture of light, shadows and darkness sets an incredible claustrophobic mood. The ambiance audio is also gteatly contributing to the eeriness vibe this movie warps you in.

The only other disappointing element of this movie is a redundant jump scare that is overused and isn't actually needed that much. Can't go in more details without spoilers but you will understand when you see it.

We have seen the story before... trapped in a mine, a group of people struggle to survive. Yes, we have seen it and similar stories more than a few times before, but seldom so well. Solid acting quite effectively conveying fear, despair, and madness; a crescendo of well paced action, a VERY claustrophobic setting, a compelling twist of the unexplained, all blended together to make a real movie out of something that could have just ended up a clone of many others. I say this even admitting that I am not usually a big fan of movies with premises like this. I really liked descent (the comparison is, in some ways, inevitable), but didn't love it as much as some, and yet I put both these movies on par and rate them highly (for me a 7 is high... the mark of a movie well worth watching). If you are one of those people who loves this type of movie, I suspect you will rate it even more highly than I did.

If it could be faulted it is that the mystery madness (without giving too much away) is never thoroughly explained, and this contributes to a rather notable question mark at the end. It did not bother me... I find the mystery compels us to feel confusion in a way similar to the characters themselves, but for some viewers it will stick in their craw and they will cry foul because the director didn't spell it out for them. But this is a character and survival piece more than anything, so it can be forgiven if it defies leading us by the nose through a neatly sewn up narrative.

With that said, make what you will of it. Sit back with the big screen and good surround sound if you have it, and a significant other maybe, and enjoy.

I had to see this because mines, along with the ocean, are such a fascinating, fertile realm for scary movies -- the pretense of fear is already in the back of most people's mind. I really liked this movie. The cast had excellent chemistry and easily played off each others strengths, and most importantly to me, their characters didn't seem as contrived or cliché as most do nowadays. It felt so fresh considering all the crappy horror movies that rely on special effects, cheap scares and shaky cams. I was very impressed by everyone, but especially Lauren Gores. She's a very attractive, intelligent actress with a good sense of how to appear truly frightened. I was immediately drawn into the suspenseful buildup of the plot by her reactions as someone unfamiliar with the mining experience. They became convincingly intensified by the fears of the more seasoned crew as things began to go very wrong, and the fabric of their sense of the predictability of the situation began to tear at the seams. I don't think intelligent viewers need their interest piqued by the commercially invoked and debatable premise that there was some kind of supernatural force down there. It's scary enough to think about the real beasts of lust and violence that humans can become when under duress, whether it's fear of another race, religion or their own growing insanity due to unknown, invisible forces.

About a decade ago, "The Descent" debuted. This film was about a group of cave explorers who became trapped and were picked off one by one by an unknown entity. Or, it is possible that they THOUGHT such creatures existed and they killed each other off in the process. A few years later, they made a sequel. Well, if you really, really love these films, Beneath is almost like seeing "The Descent Part III".

Beneath begins at a retirement party for a coal miner. At this party, in addition to everyone getting drunk, the man's daughter (who is a college student) is invited down into the mine in the morning--to see if she's brave enough to go there. Well, she shows up but soon the unexpected occurs--there's an accident and a group of miners (including the lady) are trapped. If this isn't claustrophobic and scary enough, soon they start seeing and hearing things. Are these the ghosts of other miners who died here decades ago, is there some evil presence or are they just letting their imaginations run wild? Well, the viewer isn't 100% certain and although you see some scary looking stuff, you cannot be sure that it is or isn't real. Could it just be a form of mass hysteria? All you know for certain is that the film soon becomes a violent bloodbath, as the survivors start attacking each other and soon, perhaps, none of them will be left alive.

If you like scary films, Beneath creates a nice atmosphere. It's very scary and dark and plays on many of our worst fears. The director, Ben Ketai, does a good job of building the tension and keeping the tension going. As for the script, it is a bit derivative since it is so much like the Descent films. Additionally, I didn't really like the female character, as you're expected to believe that a person who has never been in the mines might be tougher and have greater survival skills than the men who have been working there for years. Simply, she seemed more like a plot device than a real person*. Plus, I find it hard to imagine that the coal mine would let a visitor go into the shafts to hang out with the workers. Still, if you like a film with thrills and scary stuff, it does have plenty of that. Familiar but I must admit it's still pretty horrifying.

*Please do NOT get angry because of this comment. My wife is an engineer and I have been a stay at home dad for many years. I love women and appreciate their hard work--but the character seemed underdeveloped and not exactly logical. Had she been a guy invited into the mines, I STILL would have thought this character would have been the first one to die simply because he was out of his element.