Fantastic!

After playing with our expectations, this turns out to be a very different sort of film.

It's a feast for the eyes. But what really makes this dramedy work is the acting.

Worth seeing just to witness how winsome it is.

Although this movie has its flaws, the good definitely outweighs the bad. Even though the acting is not always amazing as well as cliched, the movie delivers with it's tense atmosphere, claustrophobic environment and startling scares. This movie is full of scares as well as fairly bloody kills and disturbing images that will have you jumping out of your seat. Although the beginning may be slow at times, this movie is a slow burn of terror. All in all, this is a great movie to watch if you want to be scared. One of the only major downfalls of this movie is if you think about it too much.

A likable bunch of hardworking hard drinking miners, are accompanied by their manager's daughter, on his last day before retirement, who wants to see where daddy works before she loses the chance. Of course, her timing couldn't be worse, as they unknowingly breach an unmarked cavity, triggering a cave-in that seals them all deep beneath the rocky earth. This of course is only the start of their problems, and things go rapidly and gorily downhill from there By now there's been a fair number of horrors that involve people being trapped underground, and conceptually, it doesn't offer a lot of story lines beyond panicking protagonists, flooded tunnels, falling rocks, monsters, and claustrophobia. Unless, I don't know, somebody does one where they find a fairground run by history teachers, or starts a progressive jazz band with a drum playing bear or some groundbreaking sh*t. Neil Marshall's iconic The Descent is probably the standout movie in this field for most of us, and Beneath draws more than a few parallels to it, although without directly ripping it off.. There aren't any monsters, but plenty of horribly creepy psychological/supernatural scares, ghastly make-up FX, and a cool reference to a morbid tale of olden day miners, whose true story forms the inspirational basis for this film. What's best about it though, is the rock solid production and granite performances from each and every cast member. All the characters are believable, and play their parts to perfection with some quality dialog to chew and even some brilliantly dry humor, at the start anyway . You really feel sorry for them when it all starts going south. Lighting and score work together effortlessly to create a desperate atmosphere of constant dread and unease, also of note is the use of sound, namely the eerie rumbles and strange noises emanating from the earth above, distant screams, and general audio ambiance that lends to a thoroughly convincing sense of being trapped down there with them. Those of you with decent systems will want to crank it up a little for perfect viewing. And of course, kill the lights. I heartily recommend it for anyone seeking an evening of professionally engineered scares.

Never was a big fan of the underground/descent style movies. This one was pretty good. I think the creepiest movies are the ones that draw upon natural fears. Claustrophobia is one of mine and the thought of being underground when freaky stuff happens, and the possibility of running out of light and/or oxygen makes for a tense movie. To the people that poo-poo on the "inspired by actual events": That is way different than "Based on a true story". There have been plenty of cave-ins and plenty of miners dead and some where miners survive. So who knows which one "inspired" the writers of this film. Chill out and enjoy a good movie.

Growing up in Nova Scotia, I heard a lot of stories about the coal mines in Cape Breton although they'd been closed by then. Workers often died in gruesome ways or were buried alive. Coal mines are eerie enough on their own, but then you get horror films involved with them? Now that's scary! Take My Bloody Valentine (1981) for instance, it was filmed in a real coal mine. One of the miners went crazy and ate the other workers trapped with him.Beneath takes it to an extreme. A group of coal miners are trapped when the mine collapses, and they're slowly running out of oxygen. Toxic gasses are seeping in, leaving the workers slowly going mad and wondering if they can save their air by killing the others.This was pretty amazing for an independent film, I wish it wasn't so hard to find a copy though. The plot was pretty creepy, it reminded me of a news story a few years back with a collapsed mine; workers dug 'round-the-clock to rescue the miners trapped underground. The soundtrack was a little weird but still was decent, the acting was good and I don't think it was filmed in a real coal mine but it was still highly realistic. With pointless movies that aren't very good at all getting more popular just because they are made by large companies, it was nice to see a decent independent film with a good story.