Ever since I saw Blood Red Earth (a freebie on Fearnet/on demand), I've wanted to see the actual film. Blood Red Earth was a prequel, 20 minute short film, that introduced the "burrowers" without ever showing or naming them, and I was so intrigued by the native American actors and the idea of a spooky prairie monster in the wild, wild west, that I was actually waiting for this to come out in the theater.
I found it at Hollywood. Straight to video, which is a shame.
It's a dark film, so if you're like us and have a DVD-to-TV that plays darker, it's hard to watch. That's because all the action and spook is at night, by moonlight or campfire light.
There is some violence in this that may be disturbing, although the human on human violence is very historically accurate, but I think most middle school and older kids would be fine watching this. The question I was asking myself was "who is the real monster?" Anyway, the creatures are not that exciting, except for what they do. The CGI was hard for us to see, so maybe it was spookier because our DVD plays dark shots without much contrast, we watched it on "vivid" and nothing helped.
I think it could have been filmed in a way so that it would have played better on DVD, if they intended to go straight to video, that's my only real complaint. I loved the vistas and the creepy loneliness of the prairie. There was some artistic cinematography that worked for me (camera angles) and a few devices I think are homages to Peckinpah and Eastwood style westerns. I think it's a smarter film than other "creature features" and was more enthralling than most westerns.
As far as creature features, my taste runs towards Pitch Black/True Blood and my horror runs towards Event Horizon/The Exorcist, and my sci fi is Star Trek/Firefly type stuff. Indian/Westerns I like include Jeremiah Johnson/A Man Called Horse/Windwalker. My guess is, if you are anything like me genre taste-wise, you're really going to enjoy this flick and it's well worth at least one watch, but play with the DVD player to get the best dark.
I found it at Hollywood. Straight to video, which is a shame.
It's a dark film, so if you're like us and have a DVD-to-TV that plays darker, it's hard to watch. That's because all the action and spook is at night, by moonlight or campfire light.
There is some violence in this that may be disturbing, although the human on human violence is very historically accurate, but I think most middle school and older kids would be fine watching this. The question I was asking myself was "who is the real monster?" Anyway, the creatures are not that exciting, except for what they do. The CGI was hard for us to see, so maybe it was spookier because our DVD plays dark shots without much contrast, we watched it on "vivid" and nothing helped.
I think it could have been filmed in a way so that it would have played better on DVD, if they intended to go straight to video, that's my only real complaint. I loved the vistas and the creepy loneliness of the prairie. There was some artistic cinematography that worked for me (camera angles) and a few devices I think are homages to Peckinpah and Eastwood style westerns. I think it's a smarter film than other "creature features" and was more enthralling than most westerns.
As far as creature features, my taste runs towards Pitch Black/True Blood and my horror runs towards Event Horizon/The Exorcist, and my sci fi is Star Trek/Firefly type stuff. Indian/Westerns I like include Jeremiah Johnson/A Man Called Horse/Windwalker. My guess is, if you are anything like me genre taste-wise, you're really going to enjoy this flick and it's well worth at least one watch, but play with the DVD player to get the best dark.