ShockTillYouDrop has gotten their hands on the Horrorfest poster for Matthew Leutwyler’s UNEARTHED, which was once pulled from the fest’s slate, then reinstated after FRONTIERE(S) was yanked due to problems with the MPAA. (FRONTIERE(S) will still get its own 2008 release – the rating is undetermined as of now.)
It’s an okay poster (click on it to see it full size) that frankly doesn’t really hint at what the film is about. I can tell you it’s a very average, no frills movie. In fact, why don’t I just toss my review your way (I saw it at this year’s Tribeca Film Festival):
UNEARTHED
Written and Directed by Matthew Leutwyler
I’m a big fan of monster movies, always have been. I even like those Sci Fi channel efforts that get churned out every single friggin’ week. Matthew Leutwyler is obviously a fan of monster movies too, as his UNEARTHED seems to be utterly beholden to every convention of the genre. In fact, the movie takes care of business so dutifully and humorlessly that it forgets to inject much fun. It’s like a stuffy businessman checking off his daily planner, nodding sternly at every requirement satisfied before moving on…
An obsessed archeologist (Luke Goss) “unearths” artifacts from a long-vanished tribe, and discovers, much to his chagrin, that the drought always thought responsible was not the reason for its extinction, but rather, it was a alien worshiped as god. Unfortunately, at the same time the buried creature – the love child of an H.R. Giger drawing and one of those creatures from ALONE IN THE DARK – wakes up and begins attacking the various cliched characters unlucky enough to be within its proximity: the sheriff with an ugly past, the smart-alecky black guy (a curiously unanimated, underused Charlie Murphy), the wise old Native American, the blond babes on their way to Hollywood, and random others who have to navigate their way through the dark desert.
What I’m leaving out is pages upon pages of exposition and back story detailing the alien’s history: its love-hate relationship with the dead tribe, the complicated measures that are necessary to kill it etc. It spends endless minutes explaining all this, and the more it was explained, the less I understood.. The movie mistakes our interest in all this information, while we’re just waiting impatiently for another blurry, hard-to-make-out monster attack. UNEARTHED isn’t terrible, it just fails to inject anything new in this old song, and has an all-too-serious attitude. If you demand nothing more than the bare minimum of inventiveness and spirit, then you might have an adequate time. 5/10
UNEARTHED hottie Emmanuelle Vaugier
The comment section exists to allow readers to discuss the article constructively and respectfully, focused on the topic at hand.
What’s Not Allowed