Unearthed recorded video documents a group of New Yorkers as they try to survive and escape New York City while something huge wreaks havoc and lays waste.

The Good

Holy crap. I haven’t been into a movie in a while. This had me at the edge of my seat. There have been pure scenes of panic and suspense. There are actual jump points that totally catch you off guard. They take time to pace the rises and falls. The acting is great. The film wasn’t filled with hometown heroes, but with real people with real flaws and pay for their consequences for their flaws. Just a group of people with a camera. I’m glad they casted semi-famous people instead of known faces for this movie, because it would have taken away from the story. Even though I know some of you out there can handle the shaky cam (passes out the barf bags), it works really well for this movie, story and effects wise. I thing the thing that really gets two thumbs up is Sound. Not only is it crisp and clear, but there is no score whatsoever till the end. This makes the film all the more intense.

The Bad

What was bad about this? Despite that the characters are descendants of the 50’s drive in monster movie set (except it 20somethings playing actual 20somethings) and some lapses in logic (a camcorder battery can last 7+ hours?), I think the big negative was that it felt a bit short. I do think some lengthening could have been done or at least some fleshing out of scenes.

Conclusion

If Ishiro Honda were alive today, I think he would have given high praise to J.J.Abrahms and company. They brought a new facet to an almost forgotten genre. The point of view of an innocent bystander in the middle of the “big trouble”. And while there is a “big trouble”, the movie was focused on the dilemmas and sad outcomes these people have to deal with in that span of 7 hours. Abrahms has taken the essence of Gojira and translates in a way we can connect and relate to. And he does the job very well.

If you have the cash or if a ticket is offered, jump at a chance to catch this movie whenever you can. Be sure to carry your pills in case you get motion sick though.

Four stars.

While in England, a marine biologist is compelled to investigate large amounts of dead fish washing up on the coast of Cornwall. His investigations lead him to a radioactive dinosaur that was awakened from a long dormant sleep.

England’s first kaiju movie, it was to be originally an invisible monster that gave off radioactive vibes. When director Eugene Lourie couldn’t get a buyer, he gave in to an English production house demands for a tangible monster and told the scriptwriters to combine the inviso-monster with the script of a previous movie he did, The Beast of 20,000 Fathoms. Lourie also hired the talents of Will O’Brien who was well known to everyone as the man who made the King Kong model, but also the father of Stop Motion. This was O’Brien’s last film as he was struck with sickness and most of the stop motion work was done by assistants.

With that being said, this movie takes too long in building the monster up. While I don’t mind watching scientists go up the military food chain, they could have condensed it and get to the creature. The reason for this is that the effects budget was gypped and they really had to rush to make fifteen minutes of film. While the Behemoth look good at first, the editing and camera angles hid a rush job. They only had one model, so they had to be real gentle about it. In short, this was a drawn out movie because the animated footage was too short.

This DVD is part of the WB’s Cult Camp Collection: Sci-fi Thrillers collection. The audio is nice. The video is a bit natural but isn’t too bad. The extras include a trailer and commentary by Denis Muren and Phil Tippet of Equinox fame and special effects creators. While I think they would have been a great help talking about as stop motion and the work of Will O’Brien, I do think they should have gotten a third person in the fold to do commentary about the film end. Tim Lucas or someone could’ve been a good balance to Tippet and Muren. This was one of the weaker commentaries to sit through. Informative none to less.

two and a half stars.