Mine Games

This is actually a great horror, mystery, and suspense filled brainteaser of a movie. The first time I watched this, it completely shocked me how Intricate it all become. This film goes down the rabbit hole in the best way and it is shocking where it leads. It seems like it might be a dud by the low budget and lack of acknowledgment this movie has ever received. I highly recommend it for its uniqueness and way of telling the story. There is only a couple known actors/actresses but the story telling makes up for any mediocrity in the acting.

These friends take a trip into a cabin in the woods where things start to become very Irie and make no sense, at first. As the film goes on, it so cleverly delivers what is actually going on. It makes so much since in the way they deliver the information to us, whether it is something you are discovering as the audience or if it is something the audience knows but the people in the movie may not. I highly recommend giving this movie a shot.

This one didn't seem as bad as some other reviewers would indicate. I didn't have a lot of complaints about it. I like the time loop / flashback or whatever type movies as long as they don't have a lot of flaws.

One of my favorites along those lines was Triangle

+1 Star for Putting some Nudity in where there should be some nudity.

-1 Star For Not really having much at all to do with a 'Mine'. I mean it could have just as easily been called 'The Cabin In The Woods' but I think that title has also been used a few times!!!!

5/10

A group of college graduate friends on a getaway weekend trip. Time for fun and drinking. As the van breaks down, it's a horror film as they always do, the troupe hoofs it to the nearby cabin to rest up. Upon discovering a nearby mine, the group explores. Spelunking discoveries become eerily ominous. Every trip back to the cabin to regroup provides no relief as does each trip back into the mine. Tension builds steadily throughout, the plot seems thin and weak. Just when you've got it figured out, everything changes. Break the cycle or else. Overall, well thought out and executed. People can always compare Mine Games to this and that but this dig is worth it...

This movie started off painfully dull. Seven friends are on their way to the woods where there will be

A.) no telephones

B.) no cell phone service and

C.) no other human beings for miles.

Sound familiar? Oh yeah, and on the way to the cabin in the woods (so cliché) their van breaks down. So already I'm half checked out of this movie. The oddities began with the main character, Michael (Joseph Cross), and they only ramped up from there after the gang explored an abandoned mine.

The exposition and build up phase of this movie was dreadfully slow. We were treated to little tidbits of strange activities without giving us the full entree. Though the plot can be readily deduced with all of the hints throughout you still have to be patient to see how it all unfolds. This movie is not unique and it's been done better by others. I will say that the end picked up the pace and delivered a solid finish. Not all questions will be answered, as is typical with this type of movie, but enough to at least make you feel like you were invited to the party.

Four males and three females head out to a vacation home in western Washington to celebrate graduating college, but they discover something disturbing in the nearby abandoned mine. Will any of them make it out alive?

"Mine Games" (2012) is cabin-in-the-woods sci-fi/horror, but not a slasher. It borrows a concept used three years earlier in "Dark Country" and, before that, an episode or two of Star Trek: The Next Generation. Thankfully, it presents it in a different setting and in a fresh way, tied to the ouroboros, the circler symbol of a snake eating its tail, which suggests cyclic renewal, life and death.

The production cost $1,500,000 at the time and is proficiently made, which is a plus seeing as how most cabin-in-the-woods flicks seem to be low-rent. So, this is first rate as far as general filmmaking goes, just with second-tier actors, who are convincing. The problem is that the second act is dramatically dull whereas the first act is an effective enough set-up and the third act is quite compelling with its revelations. The script needed tweaked to make the second act more entertaining, one way or another.

Julianna Guill is notable on the feminine front as blonde Claire, followed closely by Briana Evigan as brunette Lyla. Lindsay Lamb has a small part as blonde Sarah, which includes a fairly overt sex sequence, albeit brief (just a heads up for those who might want to steer clear). On the masculine side of things, Ethan Peck stands out as Guy, the grandson of Gregory Peck.

It runs 1 hour, 32 minutes, and was shot in western Washington at Gifford Pinchot National Forest, which is southeast of Mt. Rainier; Ape Cave, which is five miles due south of Mt. St. Helens; and Seattle.

GRADE: B-