TIFF Review: The Burrowers

JT Petty’s The Burrowers really should be a bit better than it actually is. The idea of combining the western and horror genres is quite intriguing and Petty has a good basis for a strong movie but unfortunately he falls a bit short with its implementation. Many times throughout the week I have heard over and over how The Burrowers takes The Searchers and combines it with Tremors. While this comparison is true at the most basis level it really does not live up to such comparisons.

When making a comparison with The Searchers one can not help but think of John Wayne’s bigoted cowboy. In The Burrowers instead of having the main hero be an anti hero we meet a violent racist captain in the army. In many ways this takes an interesting concept and waters it down to the point of being forgettable. What JT Petty should have done was to have at least one of the three main cowboys, Coffey (Karl Geary), Parcher (William Mapother) or the rancher (Clancy Brown) take on a similar role to that of John Wayne in The Searchers.

The other comparison has been with the movie Tremors. This comparison can really only be made because the monsters of both movies travel under the ground. When you make this comparison you are not giving enough credit to Tremors good sense of humour as the humour is sorely lacking here. The Burrowers is not meant to be a light fun horror movie. It is quite dark and I do not see this necessarily as a negative but when the comparison is made then the expectation will be there.

While it may sound like I am being fairly harsh on this movie it is only because of the comparisons which have been constantly made. The Burrowers has some very good points that should allow me to recommend it. It is a beautifully shot movie and does not fall into the trap that some westerns do when they linger just too long on the horizon and scenery shots. The acting is top notch from everyone involved. The premise of the movie is very interesting and finally the special effects are top notch as it relies on a combination of both practical and CGI effects.

Overall though there is nothing too memorable about Petty’s The Burrowers but on the other hand you could do a lot worse. With a few changes to the characters and a little bit more delving into the racial tension The Burrowers would have been an excellent movie. As it is though I would really only recommend this one to die hard fans who would like to see a mixing up of the western and horror genres.

TIFF Review: Deadgirl

I am completely torn on Deadgirl. This is one movie that plays very well with a Midnight Madness crowd but at any other time it will not. While watching it I couldn’t help but be reminded of last year’s movie Blood Car, which I saw at Toronto After Dark. Both movies push buttons and have a good sense of humour. I have since watched Blood Car a few times and I get a kick out of it each time. I just can’t see that happening with Deadgirl. It relies too much on jump scares when it wants to be scary while Blood Car really makes no attempt to truly scare you.

In Deadgirl, two high school friends JT and Rickie discover the body of a chained naked woman in the basement of an old asylum. In stead of releasing the nearly comatose woman JT decides that they should “keep her” and use her as a sex slave. Rickie doesn’t want anything to do with this and leaves. The next day JT grabs his friend tells him that he has to see something. After some coaxing Rickie goes along and JT tells him how he had to beat her when she tried to bite him. A fight between the two friends ensues and JT ends up shooting the woman. The audience and Rickie discover that the woman can’t be killed.

The rest of the movie is all about the secret getting out as more and more people are brought down to the basement and also on Rickie’s crush on his childhood sweet heart who of course is in dating the obnoxious jock. The humour is pretty dark and was fun but I spent the rest of the movie not enjoying the story. The Midnight Madness audience definitely enjoyed themselves but there is nothing in Deadgirl that makes me want to revisit it and without the large festival crowd it will not play well.