[yasr_overall_rating]
A group of young friends make an incomprehensible discovery in an abandoned mine, but the more they try to change the future, the more they seal their fate.
The creators of “Mine Games” have created a horror/thriller that I was not expecting in the least and one that pleasantly surprised me. The plot is totally unoriginal, initially. A group of twenty-somethings decide to stay at a house out in the middle of nowhere for a few days, with no phones or neighbors nearby and naturally, they start dying off one by one. That’s where the cliché ends thank God. The day after arriving, while out in the woods, one of the characters discovers an old, abandoned mine. They all make their way down to explore and while inside, they end up getting separated and begin hearing strange noises at which point they all decide to leave. Later on though, one of them realizes that he dropped his wallet inside the mine so he and one of the other guys go back down to look for it.
While down there, they come across a horrifying discovery: their own corpses, along with the corpse of one of the other guys. When they get back to the house, they tell the others what they found and of course nobody believes them and indubitably, they are accused of trying to cause unnecessary hysteria amongst the group. Once more, they all head back down to the mine and true to their word, they uncover the three corpses. Everybody starts questioning their own sanity, as well as each others and between them, they try to devise a plan to escape this seemingly alternate reality. When the group originally arrived, small insignificant things that transpired, a knock on the door, a whisper in the dark, all suddenly begin to make sense and it becomes apparent that they are constrained in some kind of time loop.
Director Richard Gray has constructed an absorbing and entertaining thriller that literally keeps you guessing to the last frame. It reminded me of Paul W.S. Anderson’s effectively creepy “Event Horizon”, a horror movie set in space where it wasn’t aliens or monsters terrorizing our protagonists, rather, it was their own internal fears. “Mine Games” goes down the same track, leading you to believe that you’re in for an hour and a half of stereotypical horror movie characters, running around being chased by a masked serial killer when in fact, it is nothing like you expect. The cast was strong in their respective roles and the overall quality of the production was impressive, with some beautiful photography by Greg De Marigny. Recommended.
In theaters September 12th
In stores October 7th
