Intensity: 🩸🩸 out of 🩸🩸🩸🩸🩸
Written and Directed by Mathieu Turi
The Deep Dark takes a trip into a coal mine in France, where an ancient evil being awaits. An overzealous archaeologist hires a group of miners to unknowingly help him find the crypt. Stylish but stiff, this subterranean horror show utilizes stock characters and subjects them to a predictable script. The monster is visually impressive until it moves and reveals itself to be an awkward puppet. On the plus side, the production team at least tries to apply actual mining terminology. (Though I am no expert in such things.) The film can be entertaining at times, as a generic monster movie, but it can’t elevate itself beyond a semi-mummy trope.
The good news? This movie is free to view if you have a Shudder subscription, so it’s a relatively risk-free watch. Director Turi has proved his visual skill with the woefully underseen Meander. Though he has a fine eye for lighting and mood setting, his screenwriting chops are decidedly straight-line. The plot could have been cut and pasted from a generic mummy movie, or perhaps a vampire movie. The twist is that the creature is a bit more cosmic in background, and is decidedly alien-ish. But it’s buried in an underground ancient crypt within a sarcophagus; make of that what you will. I say: Mummy. Factor in the ancient runes that surround the crypt, and again: Mummy.
Hey, nothing wrong with a mummy movie! This monster, however, lacks the historical provenance of a good mummy film. The movie does a good job setting up the scenario logistically to ensure that the expedition is safe and isolated. This is a very active mine, but palms have been greased to ensure that this group has a private excursion into the secret depths within. The miners don’t know it yet, but they are walking into a trap.
There are plenty of potential victims, right from the jump. Try to determine the order in which the characters get dispatched. (It’s not that hard.) Positive points: All the actors do a good job with the limited depth that their characters have.
Here is your cast of stock Characters:
- Amir El Kacem plays Amir, an eager greenhorn miner seeking his fortune. He’s a likable outcast with minimal backstory, other than that he’s a Moroccan Arab, so an outsider who takes a lot of crap from his colleagues.
- Samuel Le Bihan plays Roland, a WWII veteran, the courageous crew chief who looks out for his men.
- Thomas Solivérès plays Louis, a mouthy and mischievous miner, secretly lazy and greedy.
- Jean-Hugues Anglade plays Professor Berthier, the archeologist leading the expedition. He keeps his secrets in a handwritten notebook full of runic translations. He is blind to the dangers in the caverns.
- Diego Martin plays Miguel, the Spanish demolitions sapper.
- Bruno Sanches plays Santini, a cocky Italian miner.
- Marc Riso plays Polo, a genial, pudgy miner who cares for the mining horses.
A Synopsis of The Deep Dark:
We begin our story in 1856, as a French mining crew breaks through into a deadly gas-filled chamber. They summon a penitent cleric to cleanse the space. When he arrives with his torch and blessings to clear the room, a clawed hand reaches out from the darkness, causing him to drop the torch in panic and ignite an explosion in the mine.
Skip forward a century later, and we join Amir and his friend Saiid in Morocco, hoping to get selected as miners for a French mine. It would be rough work, but getting picked would be a ticket out of poverty. Saiid, a burly fellow, is deemed too ill to work, despite his apparent strength. Amir’s French language skills actually count against him. In desperation, Amir pulls a bold ploy and convinces the recruiter to select him.
Back at the Devil’s Island, Coal Mine #5, we follow Professor Berthier as he arrives at the mine with a proposal armed with stacks of Francs. He wants to go down 1000 meters to find something buried deep in the mine, no questions asked. As a demonstration of the mine’s danger, Roland emerges from the mine after rescuing a worker from a partial mine collapse. Berthier insists that Roland lead his team down. Roland initially refuses, but the money is too great to pass up. He selects his team: Louis, Polo, Santini, Miguel, and the newest arrival, Amir.
The miners work their way down, needing to clear another 100 feet to reach the requested location. They pick, dig, drill, and blast their way down until a hole opens up, where they uncover a limestone cavern complex. Roland recognizes it as the legendary cursed mine of St. Louis, the same mine that caught fire a hundred years ago, killing all the miners. Berthier wanders off, and the miners are forced to find where he disappeared to. The team discovers the desiccated remains of the St. Louis miners, who died trapped underground. Berthier has found a burial chamber, a room covered in ancient runes carved into it… and a sarcophagus, surrounded by skeletons armed with swords and shields.
The coffin is heavy and immovable… at first. Roland decides to surface, despite Berthier’s protests. But when they start the ascent, Polo’s horse senses something wrong and panics, followed by the collapse of the exit ramp. One of the miners is badly injured, so they split up, looking for another way out. But some of the miners get greedy and turn to grave robbery. Their avarice reveals the presence of an ancient being, released from its tomb, and looking for souls to claim.
Evaluation of The Deep Dark
The film does enough to earn passing marks, but only just. The set designs on the surface look the part. The more modern mine is reinforced with steel and timbers and cross-cut with veins of coal. The older limestone mine looks like a much more ancient work, but in both cases the floors are too smooth and level. It’s nice set decoration, but if you compare these mines to the real thing, like in My Bloody Valentine, you can tell the difference. It also isn’t as claustrophobic as you might expect. The Descent takes the title in this regard. Still, it looks the part.
The acting is fine. Everyone has a defined role, but there aren’t any story arcs here. No character actually evolves or develops over the course of the story. They have their traits, and the expected results happen. Berthier is aloof and obsessed. Roland is a stalwart protector. Louis is a loud-mouthed rascal. Amir is the innocent, wide-eyed newcomer. That’s all fine, but it all plays out predictably, with the exception of the concluding act, which surprised me. Though not well known in the US, the rugged Le Bihan is a star in France, and horror fans will recognize him from Brotherhood of the Wolf (2001). He’s the standout performer here, though Anglade does provide an entertaining heel as the professor.
Our monster really doesn’t arrive until late in the second act, which is unfortunate. In concept, the wraith-like multi-armed monstrosity is imposing (see the picture above). The production decided to go with physical animatronic effects, which I normally applaud. Unfortunately, that proves to be this movie’s undoing. The puppetry behind the Mok’Noroth moves awkwardly. You never really see it move very well. It attacks by grabbing its victim and slowly raking him with its claws. Clever editing and cut sequences hide the creature’s deficiencies. The face is an unmoving, unblinking mask. It can’t bite. It doesn’t really run. In this way, it is relatively mummy-like. Close, but not quite, and that’s unfortunate.
Concluding Thoughts:
The Deep Dark gave a game effort, and it makes for a passable creature feature. It may offer up an evening of entertainment, but it doesn’t do anything particularly new or innovative. The monster is clumsy. The protagonists are one-dimensional, and the setting, which could have been very claustrophobic, fails to generate scares. It’s not a great thing that the part that hit me the hardest was the death of the horse.
As a period-piece film, the costumes and sets feel right, particularly the above-ground mine scenes, which look like they would have passed BBC costume drama approval. The most similar film to this was the WWI trench warfare horror film Trench 11, for which I gave a similar score, or perhaps Bunker, another subterranean WWI movie. Another comp for this movie would be Pumpkinhead, though Stan Winston’s monster animatronics were far superior; this film’s acting was better than Pumpkinhead.
The Deep Dark is not rated, but would likely get an R rating for gory violence and language. For hardened horror fans, the gore is mild, but it would be enough to push it over the line. This film is available to stream for free if you have a Shudder account. If you like mummy movies, this would probably be to your liking; otherwise, your mileage may vary.
Review by Eric Li
