Shookum Hills

The director of Chernobyl Diaries did not raise much hope and made a film similar in quality, perhaps even worse. The only thing that can be praised is the setting of the Appalachian Mountains and the underground coal mine, where rather than monsters there are some fairly decent mutants with pretty faces, and I liked the main character that looks like Lara Croft, but that's about it. It's awkwardly shot, has that cheap shabby 90s look to it, and the camera not only shakes quite a lot – at times I felt like the director was perhaps trying to switch to found footage style – but also frequently dodges to cover up the cheap budget. So you don’t even realise that half the people are already dead. The gore is mostly nonexistent, the atmosphere tries but doesn't work too well, and even though it has a lighter touch of Wrong Turn and Silent Hill in places, it's woefully uninteresting and kind of pointless. This is not very good. 4/10. (06/03/2021)

An utterly funny and silly b-movie about monsters in an abandoned coal mine. I really must like monster flicks a lot to give this one at least those weak two stars. The scene that best describes it is when the two heroes, paralysed by monster’s venom, spend about five minutes crawling millimetre by millimetre towards a grenade, and the moment they throw that grenade, they get up and, without any signs of physical difficulties, run like hell. The design of the monster is also funny, as well as the stuff the characters sometimes say with very serious faces. (05/03/2021)