Coventry Some movies are just … unlucky. These are the films that obviously thrived on a lot of goodwill and a handful of potentially great ideas, but simply didn't have the budgetary means and/or professional cast and crew members at their disposal to make it happen. "The Strangeness" definitely belongs in this category. You really want to like it, but even the most tolerant and undemanding 80's horror fanatics will have to admit the film barely reaches the level of mediocrity due to its atmosphere of cheapness, clumsy stop-motion effects and impenetrably dark cinematography. "The Strangeness" has a fairly original plot and setting (okay, it's similar to "The Boogens" but I sincerely doubt that director David Michael Hillman intentionally ripped off a fellow insignificant 80's B-movie) and the players deliver enthusiast performances even though they're all miscast. An assembly of amateur speleologists go on an expedition to explore the infamous Gold Spike mine. Many years ago, several miners mysteriously died there and the place has abandoned ever since, but there's supposed to be too much gold hidden there to remain closed forever. Shortly after they descended into the mine, the group members one by one encounter the slimy ruler of the Gold Spike mine; a Lovecraftian monster with tentacles and an incredibly cheesy way of moving forward. Throughout most of its running time, "The Strangeness" is a boring and incompetent mess that is difficult to follow due to the complete lack of lighting. The characters are uninteresting and the mine remains a mystery because the only lighting effects come from the helmets of the speleologists. There's very little action or horror to experience in the first hour, but director Hillman cleverly grasps the viewers' attention by showing bits and pieces of the monster at regular intervals. As soon as you catch the first glimpse of the monster's tentacle, you're doomed to keep watching till the very end. The creature is realized with stop-motion effects, which I usually adore and worship, but here in this case they look extremely weak and pitiable. The person responsible for the special effects should have paid more attention to the work of Ray Harryhousen. The death sequences largely occur off-screen and there's very little suspense throughout the whole movie. A horror flick with a setting like this should benefice from claustrophobic atmosphere and unidentifiable sound effects, but "The Strangeness" lacks all this. The biggest trump of the film is unquestionably the beautiful appearance of blond actress Terri Berland. She resembles a speleologist as much as I resemble Mother Theresa, but she surely looks good in her tight white top and beige pants.

Woodyanders Basically an endearingly chintzy and moronic $1.50 version of the nifty early 80's subterranean creature feature favorite "The Boogens," this entertainingly schlocky cheapie centers on a nasty, squirmy, wriggling monster who makes an instant meal out of any unfortunate souls foolhardy enough to go poking around the notoriously off limits Gold Spike Mine. Your standard-issue motley assortment of intrepid boneheads -- hectoring hard-nosed mine boss, cute, but insipid blonde babe, feisty lady geologist, boozy, inexplicably Aussie-accented (!) seasoned old mine hand, charmless doofus, hunky, jolly guy, and, arguably the most annoying character of the uniformly irritating bunch, a nerdy bespectacled aspiring writer dweeb who's prone to speaking in flowery, melodramatic utterances -- trek into the dark, uninviting cave in search of gold. Naturally, these intensely insufferable imbeciles discover that the allegedly abandoned mine is the home of a deadly, ugly, multi-tentacled beast who in time honored hoary B-flick fashion proceeds to gruesomely bag the group one at a time. Directed, co-written, co-produced and co-edited with dumbfounding maladroitness by Melanie Anne Phillips, acted with dismaying flatness by a rank no-name cast, further marred by lethargic pacing, a drably meandering narrative, murky, under-lit, eye-straining cinematography, a shivery, redundantly thudding pseudo-John Carpenter synthesizer score, and a cruddy, herky-jerky stop motion animation wormoid thingie that's only quickly glimpsed at the very end of the movie, this extremely clunky, amateurish and hence quite delectably dreadful would-be scarefest commits all the necessary bad film missteps to qualify as a real four-star stinkeroonie.

lrc81 A group of people decide to explore an old mine "Golden Spike", each of them has a different interest. One wants to write a book about it, other is a photographer, there's also a geologist and finally a couple of guys working for the person heading the expedition, their objective is to see if it's worth investing half a million dollars to re-open the mine. One by one they encounter the monster and to make matters worse all the possible exits appear to be blocked. "winds of hell" mysteriously start blowing, fear sets in, the only lights are the ones from the helmets. The guy in charge snaps, thinking that the rest of the people want to rob his firm's gold, there's no place to hide.This monster reminded me of Lovecraft's monsters, I'm not a fan of this sort of clay monsters, the tentacles, how it moved. Even though the movie takes place in a mine, it should have had better lighting, at times all you can see is the light on their helmets, which is the same as saying, you can't see nothing at all. The acting deserves mixed reviews, some were OK, others not so much. Overall it's an average story that could have become a good movie if there was a bigger budget.

EyeAskance A geological expedition of an abandoned mine becomes a living nightmare when its members find themselves trapped underground with a hulking, tentacled vagina monster. The interesting looking beast is brought to life via stop-motion animation(with marginal success). This creature, of origins which are never conclusively deduced, appears to digest its victims externally by covering them with a thick, enzymatic slime.This unjustly overlooked monster movie was clearly produced on breadcrumb rations, but well-maintained suspense and a dark, foreboding atmosphere make up heartily for its bush-league deficiencies. Not a classic, perhaps, but certainly deserving of a more prominent placement within the annals of horror cinema.6/10... Recommended.