Acensbart Excellent but underrated film

RipDelight This is a tender, generous movie that likes its characters and presents them as real people, full of flaws and strengths.

Isbel A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

Billy Ollie Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

Scarecrow-88 A group of friends receive word from a pal who has found gold in an old mind shaft nearby an ancient abandoned western town of Suttersville. Despite warnings by the local sheriff, Murphy(John Phillip Law), Old Man Prichard(Richard Lynch)a bedraggled hick who swindles tourists with supposed collectible Wanted posters, and kooky superstitious Aunt Nelly(Karen Black)to stay out of the mine due to it's notorious legend(..that an evil coal miner who sold his soul to devil and murdered a priest's(Jeff Conaway)daughter will return from the dead to kill those who remove the gold from his shaft), these people only see the green, not the blood red which could potentially ooze from their slain bodies. Finding the gold of Jeremiah Stone intact, they line their pockets and carrying cases, prepared for the bright futures that supposedly lie ahead. But, when you do not heed the warnings of those you consider backwoods loons, the obvious result will be gruesome death. Jeremiah Stone, as we see, is lying merely a skeleton near an alter containing skulls lined next to each other as the candles on top of them light up, the pickax underneath awaiting it's master, with dust particles returning him to a grotesque corpse with demonic exposition, his eyes aglow with wrath. This hapless group, hoping for some fun around the campfire with gold providing them with warm prospects for life ahead, will fall prey to the vengeful ghoul and his mean pickax. Another victim will meet the nasty end of a shovel thrown through the windshield of her vehicle, directing it's path straight into her neck. Another failed attempt to retreat has Stone causing a frightened victim to drive his car into a tree, his body engulfed in flames as he fails to escape without harm. Another, a local girl searching for her new friends, worried about their well being, receives the pickax buried into her stomach. Aunt Nelly informs those still alive about the Forty-Niner and the curse on those who raids his eternal stash..and pays the price for relating such information. Will anybody survive? Or, is the entire group fated to perish at the hands of the zombie miner?Make-up effects artist and monster creator, John Carl Buechler directs this supernatural slasher without worrying about logic or strong story-telling, opting instead to allow his zombie miner to destroy anyone and everyone who happens to be in his path. He provides just enough back story, and this is feeble at best, for the killer allowing special guest star, Karen Black(..oh how her career has sunken into the abyss)to explain to the viewer about him. The story given to us has the miner holding a priest's daughter hostage, threatening to execute her as the Suttersville authorities warn against such an action. Startling enough, Stone plants that pickax right into her back, with the opposition unloading their guns with little effect because he sold his soul to Satan. Retreating to his domain, the mine shaft, Stone sends out a warning against anyone even attempting to take what's his, the loot. Typical of most slashers in general, this bunch of twenty-somethings are your garden variety victims, with little development other than some banter and exchanging of words provides as filler until the undead maniac pops onto the scene to slaughter them. They are the usual group, from the city, trespassing unto unfamiliar territory, resurrecting an evil that should remain dormant. Like many of the later 80's slashers, a good deal of the violence is off-screen. What is on screen, the minimal gore, is rather mundanely presented and happens rather quickly. The ghoul make-up for the killer is only shown occasionally;he's mostly shrouded in darkness, the victims' horrified faces as he catches or chases after them are given more credence than the method of destruction. One thing's for certain, stunt men were set on fire many times. At least three times, a character is burned alive by either a lantern or flaming vehicle. Martin Cove has a minor cameo as Black's former husband, Caleb, now living with a much younger, and dense, honey. Vernon Wells(..of The Road Warrior and Commando fame)has the back story role of Jeremiah Stone as a human, still capturing the same type of menace he specializes in. John Phillip Law seems to be enjoying himself as the rather polite and hospitable sheriff, welcoming the outsiders to his neck of the woods. Buechler has quite an attractive cast of actresses, all wearing tight pants and smallish shirts, showing off their sleek and athletic figures, especially Elina Madison as easy-lay Roxann, always willing to remove her clothes for greedy jerk, Hayden(Rick Majeske). Stephen Wastell(The Ghosts of Edendale) is Axl, a rather clumsy foil, used as a butt of many jokes including his "dump in the woods" scene and current unemployment status.

Paul Andrews Curse of the Forty-Niner starts as teenager Claire (Carrie Bradac) is chopping onions in her kitchen, her husband Nick (Sean Hines) comes in & gives her a letter sent from her brother Jared (Shadrach Smith) claiming he has found a gold mine in an abandoned town called Suttersville & includes a nice nugget of gold as proof. Sensing an opportunity to get rich quick Claire, Nick & some of their friends Axl (Stephen Westell) & Tori (Sangie) plus Hayden (Rick Majeske) & Rox Ann (Elina Madison) have driven to Suttersville before you could say 'there's gold in them thar hills'. Unfortunately while they do find lots of gold they quickly discover that because of an ancient curse anyone who takes it will be killed by the ghostly zombie miner from the dead named Jeremiah Stone (associate producer Vernon Wells) who really doesn't like people stealing his gold...Also known as Miner's Massacre & directed by John Carl Buechler this is yet another cheap, low budget teen slasher without a hint of originality & nothing particularly noteworthy to say about it. The script by Antonio Olivas is a really routine, predictable & uninspiring teen slasher in the vein of Halloween (1978) & Friday the 13th (1980) with a particular emphasis on My Bloody Valentine (1981) with it's murderous pick axe wielding miner. I don't really know what else to say about Curse of the Forty-Niner that I haven't already, this is just a complete rip-off of any slasher film you care to mention with a group of horny teen character's, a distinctive undead killer who uses mining tools to murder people, the locals who 'warn' the kids to stay away, local legends that come true & a fat Sheriff who thinks they are up to no good. This is just a very generic, predictable & somewhat forgettable flick. To be honest it's not the worst film of it's type for sure, the character's aren't too annoying, the killer is reasonably fun, it only lasts for about 80 minutes so it's short & it's alright but in no way spectacular. The first half of the film is the set-up, the kids finding the gold & Jeremiah Stone coming back to life while the second half is out & out slasher as the kids try to survive. I've seen worse but then again I've seen better.Director Beuchler is a bit of a jack of all trades with various credits for visual effects, special effects, producing, directing, acting & writing but he is perhaps best know as a special make-up effects artist with a lot of credits to his name. It then comes as a disappointment that Curse of the Forty-Niner is such a tame & relatively bloodless film, there's a bit of blood splatter, a decapitated head, a pick-axe briefly shown in someones stomach & a shovel stuck in someones throat is the sum total. The effects are of the cheap variety & there's nothing that memorable here which considering his background has to be a disappointment.Technically the film is competent even if the town of Suttersville consists of of about four buildings! There are a few small cameos here, Martin Kove makes a very brief appearance & is also credited as an associate producer, veteran actor John Phillip Law turns up as does Richard Lynch. The teen cast aren't great, I seen worse though.Curse of the Forty-Niner is a pretty bog standard average run of the mill teen slasher, it's not entirely horrible but the disappointing lack of gore & a forgettable predictable plot sinks it.

BA_Harrison Director and FX man John Carl Buechler doesn't have to do much in order to terrify me; the sight of his name in the credits alone is enough to strike fear into my heart.His lamentable straight-to-video output in the 80s sat on the bottom shelf of the horror section at my local rental shop; twenty years later, and his DVDs occupy the same space. It seems that the more things change, the more they stay the same. You can rely on old JCB to serve up dreck, whatever the format and regardless of advances in movie-making technology.In this contemptible offering, a bunch of friends travel to a remote town where they discover the secret treasure hoard of Jeremiah Stone, AKA the forty-niner—an evil, claim-jumping, cannibalistic miner who caused havoc in the mid-1800s. Before his death, Jeremiah cursed anyone who should find his gold, and it's not long before the pick-axe wielding killer is back, bumping off the hapless treasure seekers.With its dreadful script, unimpressive make-up effects and Scooby-Doo style villain, 'The Curse of the Forty-Niner' is par for the course for Buechler. Only genre stalwarts Keren Black, Richard Lynch and John Phillip Law lend this movie any credibility whatsoever, with the rest of the cast giving performances ranging from bad to awful (although I'll forgive Alexandra Ford, who is a complete hottie).Even fans of bad schlock horror will be disappointed since most of the women keep their clothes on, and a lot of the deaths occur off-screen (which is probably not such a bad thing since the on-screen deaths are pathetic).'The Curse of the Forty-Niner' is another in a long list of duds for John Carl.

pumaye This is an embarrassing nth rehashing of the same plot in the nth bunch-of-idiots-young-adult-in-peril-because-they-are-idiots slasher movie of the early millennium: this time we get the story of a crazy miner who comes back from the dead to retake his gold from the hands of the usurpers. We have almost no thrills, almost no bare flesh (even if the girls are really hot only one of them goes showing her bare ass for a few seconds), the usual bunch of sunset boulevard horror stars in cameo roles (this time Karen Black, Richard Lynch, John Philip Law, Jeff Conaway), lots of fake blood, only the crazy miner resurrected as a zombie is cool enough to leave you stuck - well not exactly - to the screen till the end. Don't waste your time if you are not a completist.