Review for The Burrowers (potential spoilers)
Usually when I see that the directer and writer are one in the same, red flags go up. However, in this case, Petty pleasantly surprised.
With a fine cast, including Clancy Brown. The sweeping cinematography and nice lighting, the plot moves along nicely building tension as it goes.
The film is set in the Dakota Territories during the late 1800s.
A family is found, some dead, some missing. The dead have strange wounds and don’t appear to have bled out. Strange holes are also found nearby.
Four men set out with a military escort to find the missing. Including a young girl fancied by one of the riders.
Eventually, an Indian is captured. When questioned, he speaks of ‘the burrowers’.
After finding more strange holes in the ground, the four leave the escort to follow these signs, instead of going to the Indian reservation to try to find information.
After finding an abandoned wagon, one of the searchers, a young boy, finds a lock of hair in the dirt. The hair is from a young girl, buried alive, shallowly in the dirt. She has the same type of injuries that the bodies in the beginning had.
The boy is sent with the girl to town.
Night falls and the boy is attacked by a creature that cuts his neck ( like the others) and spits some kind of saliva on his wounds that paralyzes him. He is then drugged away and buried.
The other searchers have been attacked by Indians. After burying the dead, (Clancy Brown) one of the men, Wil, is attacked by a creature in the night. After the creature cuts his neck, Wil comments that he can’t feel his hand or his face.
The next day the group comes upon an Indian woman named Faith. She tells them that will is marked. She tells them that these creatures bury their food. Let it rot. Then return later to eat the soft parts.
Faith travels with them in search of the Ute Indians who know how to kill these creatures.
And this is the point in the movie, when your curiosity starts to get the best of you and you REALLY want to know what happens next.
IMDB.com has a score of 5.8
I liked ‘The Burrowers’.
It is a suspenseful, creepy, solid film, with a tense build-up.
My favorite thing about this movie was the special effects. Both the various wounds and the creatures were well done, physical effects. No CGI!