Posted: 09/09/2011

Born of Earth

(2008)

by Joe Sanders

Available on DVD from Entertainment One on September 13th

The Silurians on Doctor Who are a race of reptilian humanoids who occupied planet Earth before human beings evolved to the top of the food chain. They are proud and intelligent creatures, and their attempts to achieve diplomacy with the human race has always been disastrous, creating a lot of interesting conflict and raising a lot of thought-provoking questions about the nature of humanity.

The creatures in Born of Earth, on the other hand, are animalistic killing machines that have been around since before humans yet remain completely unevolved and uninteresting. The creatures will walk right into your home, slaughter your wife, and kidnap your kids before casually returning to their underground dwellings. And even though a whole pack of these things will storm a human residence and do whatever they feel like, not to mention wreak havoc on an entire town, no one’s ever caught onto the fact that they even exist.

The comparison to Doctor Who is meant to demonstrate that this type of story can be done well, with themes and everything. But here, director Tommy Brunswick and writer Joseph Thompson opted instead to crank out the worst from horror cinema. The story, such as it is, revolves around Danny Kessler (Daniel Baldwin), whose wife has been murdered and whose kids have been kidnapped by these creatures. Luckily for Danny, even though the creatures have evolved with an instinct to maintain their own secrecy (of course I’m writing this in myself to try to justify the film’s ridiculous premise), they give up on trying to kill him after a quick bite on the shoulder and retreat to under the Kessler’s back yard.

Five years later, Danny’s an expert on these things and is doing whatever he can to stop others from getting hurt. Through the course of events, Danny learns that the creatures only hunt once every five years, so he has to return to his home town to save his dead wife’s sister (Jennifer Kincer) and her teenage daughter (Shannon Zeller).

It’s a perfect movie to get a group of friends together to ridicule. In fact, the movie almost makes fun of itself…you just have to actually provide the commentary. And, sadly, this is not surprising after you look at Ms. Brunswick’s filmography. The director apparently delights in churning out cheap horror movies no one has ever heard of like Mr. Jingles and They Must Eat. If all of her endeavors are as ripe with parody potential as this epic, then I can see many more friend-filled, Brunswick-bashing, alliteration amplifying parties in my future.

It should go without saying that the acting and script here are terrible. There’s a reason no one ever says “Hey, did you see the new Daniel Baldwin movie?” The highlight performance comes from James Russo, who plays the town’s sheriff. It’s not a good performance, but he has some good moments that make his scenes more digestible than the rest of the movie.

But as bad as the acting and script are, the thing that really stands out as being unforgivably bad is the lighting. I think that’s the first time I’ve ever criticized a film’s lighting, but this is incredible. You can’t see anything. I don’t know if this was to [unsuccessfully] cover up the hilarious creature effects, but the worst of it occurs when the survivors make their way into the sewer to hide from the carnage above, where there’s a solid ten minutes of dark shadows moving, people screaming, and muffled gun shots going off. It’s completely unwatchable. The only thing going for the film is the ending. Though I can’t say I saw it coming, it’s how I would have ended the story…except I would have gone with better writing.

The DVD has no special features, befitting a film with no reason for existing. Those who enter here: Abandon all hope.

Joe Sanders is a playwright and college instructor in Kalamazoo, Michigan. He has a Master’s degree in playwriting and a Bachelor’s degree in creative writing from Western Michigan University, where he currently teaches Thought and Writing.

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