Mine Games | Movie Review

Horror movies have lots of clichés, one of the most popular being a group of young people who decide to spend a weekend in a cabin out in the middle of nowhere.  Austrailian director Richard Gray’s cleverly titled ‘Mine Games’ begins with this familiar trope, but takes an interesting and unexpected twist that brings a breath of fresh air to the genre.  Sadly, the film does not satisfy nearly enough and feels like a good idea that could have been implemented better with a tighter script and better production.

It’s difficult to discuss the story of ‘Mine Games’ without spoiling the twist that separates this film from a traditional ‘cabin in the woods’ style movie, so we will tread lightly.  Six friends travel to a friends cabin for a weekend of fun and drinking.  Everything seems fine until the group discovers an abandoned mine and decides to explore it.  What transpires after their visit to the creepy cave makes the kids question whether they are hallucinating, having a psychotic break down, or simply at the mercy of a killer. The reveal is a very clever spin, but never quite comes together in a cohesive manner and ends with more questions than answers.

The biggest issue with the plot is the pacing.  The film simply takes too long to get going.  It’s a good 45 minutes before anything other than character development happens, and audiences might find themselves getting bored too quickly before the interesting aspects begin to take shape.  This is where editing could have done wonders, as 20 minutes or more could have easily been cut from this movie.

The performances in ‘Mine Games’ are surprisingly believable, yet occasionally forgettable.  Joseph Cross’ Michael feels genuine throughout as he goes back and forth between strong leader and confused/scared victim. Rafi Gavron was easily the highlight of the cast.  His character, Lex, is the stereotypical alcohol and drug user of the group, but he convincingly flips the switch into a very serious mode when things go wrong. The trio of female leads in the film offers serviceable work, but there is simply nothing special about their performances, including top-billed Briana Evigan.

The scenes that take place outside or in the cabin are shot very well, but anything in the mine was entirely too dark.  It is one thing to give the audience an understanding of how hard it is to view one’s surroundings in this situation, but it is another completely to distract from the story by making a viewer squint at the screen to see the action.  Outside of the darkness, the movie looks better than its budget might otherwise dictate.

‘Mine Games’ is a good idea that was, quite frankly, done better in other films.  Although some of the acting and cinematography were better than expected, the rest of it was conversely worse.  In addition, the film suffers from extraordinarily slow pacing in the first half and isn’t nearly as intriguing or exciting as ‘Coherence’, for example.  That film does a much better job at proving you don’t need a huge budget to make an interesting film or concept work.

Also known as ‘The Evil Within
Starring Briana Evigan, Julliana Guill, Rafi Gavron
Directed by Richard Gray
Written by Richard Gray, Ross McQueen, Michele Doris-Gray

Scott Clark
The Hollywood Outsider