For your protection, I've been fitted with an explosive neck bracelet sensitive to Midnight Madness spoilers-- in this case The Burrowers!
It's a fringe sort of concept that I would like to see more of... First consider the setting; and I'm really a fan of these hybrid concept horror films; this one a fusion of a Classic Western and the Creature Feature.
RAVENOUS is the only comparison I can think of; where I have also seen horror and frontier western married so effectively.
And I keep pushing this to people, but I think Ravenous and The Burrowers would make a great double feature. Let me know what you think here.
But today, I want to talk about a movie that Burrowers has been unjustly compared to on the boards of imdb.com. Another movie with underground creatures... Tremors.
While spectacular in its own right Tremors (part one, anyway) is a far ways off from the kind of brooding terror JT Petty (S&MAN) accomplishes with The Burrowers.
After watching the Chuck Liddel vs Rashad Evans fight last night after midnight madness, with my eyeballs hanging out of my face, around 4am, I'm thinking it's about time we have some competition of our own here.
Tremors VS The Burrowers!
Round one; How do you prefer to die?
A Tremor creature would offer you the shot gun to the face sort of death, devouring you instantly in a mess of chomped guts, half eaten rocks and car parts. Not so bad, depending on how you luck out with tooth and fang placement.
In The Burrowers, human death only comes in one flavor; slow and painful. They'll still eat you, but it's more of an uhm... process. My spoiler necklace prevents me from saying more without my jugular exploding, into an eight second red mist.
Round two: The matter of Escape
Your average pick up truck could out run a Tremor creature. (Is that the scientific name for them? ) Edit: They're called Grabiods!
From what I've observed in the wild; A Burrower, would have trouble keeping pace with a horse... I'm not sure it could even begin to keep up with a motor vehicle.
This round goes to... well, wait a second!
See, the problem is the Tremor creature loses your address, in its limited mental map of roots and pipe placements... The Tremor creature shuffles around, slinks back into the dirt, grossly confused by the vibrations of a nearby jackhammer.
The Burrower, although dramatically slower, would patiently track you and eventually make it inside of your house while you slept. At which point, with equal patience, it would help you to die.
Which brings us to weaknesses. Every great movie monster is weak against, well something-- how exactly do you kill these things?
Round Three: Sorting these bastards out
So in Tremors, I seem to remember some well placed dynamite combined with Kevin Bacon's craftiness. I feel like one of em split open on the pavement after being tricked out the side of a cliff? (Sorry, my exploding spoiler neck bracelet only works for protecting MM movies.)
The Burrower... well, they're the crafty ones, and we got no dashing young Kevin Bacon to back us up here. This will demand a different, less spur of the moment sort of plan of attack; you'll have to see for yourself-- but I give the final act of Burrowers the edge for this round.
Okay, but what we want to see here is a Godzilla movie resolution between the two, no? And I'm not sure that there's any kind of cross over feature planned for the two films; and with the more recent Tremor movies, I'd say to keep that one in retirement. But for the sake of MM blogging, let's pace this one out;
Face to face, in an open field, one on one, the two creatures bearing down on one another, with anime speedlines in the background, I'd say the Tremor monster would get the KO... They're just so damned big. It's a different weight class.
The problem is, Burrowers don't roll alone. Tremors had the budget to show what, maybe three of those giant worms at once? That's hardly deserving of the plural title.
The Burrowers, well, once you're marked...
My neck bracelet is starting to beep again, so I better post this before it--