Abandoned Mine (aka The Mine) is pretty damned terrible in every sense of the word. Annoying and unlikeable characters, stupid story, lame and obvious plot twists... you can see the script *trying* - things get set up and paid off, so it's a little admirable in that that respect. And I guess it's pretty competently shot too. But still, it's a pretty rough and surprisingly unscary ride.
It centers around five friends in Small Town America. (Happy Valley, state unnamed. Although apparently there is a Happy Valley in Oregon, so there's that.) The friends spend the Halloween night in... you guessed it... an abandoned mine! Only this mine is haunted by a miner ghost and his daughters, because little girl ghosts are scarier than little boy ghosts. This Jarvis mine has a reputation, and none of the group, besides leader Brad, wants to even bother checking it out. (This is explained when the friends are all "you said we were going to *an* abandoned mine... but not the Jarvis mine!" You would assume their spider senses would have been tingling when Brad said "lets go to a mine on Halloween"... but whatever.)
Leader Brad is a doofusy jock type that that the ladies love (although why is anyones guess... he just seems like a whiny dipshit the entire film). His girlfriend Sharon in also a townie, while his ex-girlfriend (and Sharon's friend) Laurie has moved on to bigger and better things. The friends give Laurie a hard time for leaving, even though she got a scholarship to Stanford. Can't say I blame her for taking off. Rounding out the group is Brad's doofusy jock friend Jimmy and Laurie's friend from school, a guy from India named Ethan. (When Brad and Jimmy can't pronounce Ethan's given name, they shortcut to calling him "Geronimo." I can't decide if that is funny, subversive, or racist.)
Anyways, Brad convinces them to go by saying that they'll just hang out *by* the mine, shoot the shit, and roast marshmallows. But when a storm hits they are forced to take shelter in the mine. And of course, things don't go as planned and they get trapped. Brad has outfitted them all with these goofy-looking helmets with cameras on them... I guess he wants to make a found footage movie. But luckily, this is not the route writer/director Jeff Chamberlain takes - while there are occasional snippets from the helmet-cam, the film is traditionally shot. And thank goodness, this is rough enough as a normal movie - it'd be goddamned brutal as a found footager. For example, when all five characters are in the car, all signs point to boring, so the film just speeds up until they are at the mine (using a fast forward effect). I know if this was a found footage film, we would have just lingered with them in the car, and it would have sucked [more].
But even with the editing tricks to speed things up, it still takes a hell of a long time for anything to happen. I mean, by the time we are fifty minutes into the film, everyone is still standing... all that has happened? Someone... or some*thing*.... has burned through a rope, and has turned on a stereo when no one else was around. (Good thing Brad listens to metal, for maximum volume and scares. It wouldn't be as scary if "My Humps" or something just randomly came on. Brad does seem like a Black Eyed Peas guy though...) So Abandoned Mine is just slow, and the characters aren't interesting or witty enough to keep things moving. Ethan is smart (since he's Indian, I guess) and knows about caves, so tries to lead them into finding a way out.
Then, they encounter a ghost in the least exciting way possible. One person makes their way from the party and (offscreen) starts yelling "hey guys... there's something out here! Oh no! Don't come out here! It's coming to get me. It's attacking me! Agghhhhh!" He's pretty much just giving unseen commentary on his own demise, which is just laughably bad. (If there are any Dirty Work fans here, it's kind of like the chainsaw death in that film.)
And then comes a big twist, which is basically the same thing as in Devil's Backbone, Texas, but dumber. Actually, it's kind of an interesting comparison - Backbone waits until the very, very end for it's stupid reveal, whereas here it's sort of kicks off the third act. That timing just doesn't work in Mine's favor... you just have more time to dwell on how stupid it is.
Horror-wise? It's rated PG-13, and there isn't an awful lot of blood or gore or anything like that. The one potentially gory part turns out to be fake. There isn't much tension, other than the fact that they are underground in a mine. I guess if you're claustrophobic it would be kind of creepy, but other than that there isn't much to it. Honestly, I can't remember one part of this film that even approached "scary" or "troubling."
I guess the only thing that really saves this from being a complete mess is that it looks pretty good and is well-shot. I thought the bit towards the end when the got the lights working in the mine looked especially good. (But it's quickly ruined by some terrible line about the mine being "like a person," so they're in it's stomach. And there's a steep incline going down into a hole, so they're almost out. It's kind of stupid line, because you pretty much are forced into thinking "so you're leaving through the ass?") I thought that the mine stuff could have felt a little more suffocating, but I suspect they knew this was a PG-13 film from the get go, so they didn't try and overdo it. But overall, it looks polished and has a nice color palette - too bad it's wasted on a weak story.
So I've got no love for Abandoned Mine. It just kind of sucks. And even though you'd *think* it's a found footager based on the story and helmet-cams and all that jazz, it's not. So beware. A girl does get dragged away from the camera though. So there's that.
I would definitely not recommend this film.
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