15 Second Review: Dead Mine (2013)

Steven Shiel’s follow-up to Mum and Dad is likely to consolidate his critics’ worst fears. Mum and Dad was hardly original, but it at least made for grim viewing. Unfortunately, with Dead Mine Shiel has made a terrible gaff: he removes Mum and Dad’s characteristic dismalness and retains the lack of innovation. The result is Dead Mine: an unhealthy mishmash of recent bunker entrapment films (Outpost, The Divide, Bane, Basement), blended with a dash of The Descent, The Hills Have Eyes 2 and Shadow, topped off with imagery from Oasis of the Zombies, and old-hat “Unit 731” themes (see Men Behind the Sun, Philosophy of a Knife). Slow and dull, Dead Mine boasts no significant narrative trajectory to speak of, and eventually simply ceases. As the end credits roll some generic post nu metal music trundles along in much the same way the film itself did. Ultimately, Dead Mine commits the worst crime a horror film can: it is boring, uninspiring and utterly forgettable.