Nine Miles Down (2009 film)

Promotional image for Nine Miles Down (2009 film)...

Nine Miles Down (2009), AKA Hell Underground

Summary

"Lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil..." A security expert is sent to a remote scientific camp to investigate strange things that are happening.

Details

• Release Date: 2009
• Country/Language: South Africa, English
• Genres/Technical: Horror, Science Fiction
• Setting: Modern (2000s) Sahara Desert, Africa
• Runtime: 1 hr 26 min
• Starring: Adrian Paul, Amanda Douge, Anthony Waller
• Director: Anthony Waller
• Writer: Everett De Roche, Anthony Waller
• Producer/Production Co: Silverback Films, Gone to Hell, A-Mark Entertainment
• View Trailer: (link)
• IMDB Page: (link)

Ratings

MPAA Ratings

• Rated: (not rated) (equivalent of a PG-13 or R for mild Violence, brief Nudity, and occasional Profanity)

Tentacle Ratings

A rough measure of how "Lovecraftian" the work is:

• S____ (One Tentacle: Debateably Lovecraftian; has almost no direct connection to Lovecraft's work)

Has no actual "Lovecraftian" content, though some fans may find the eerie location, dream-like atmosphere, and surreal imagery suggestive of some qualities of Lovecraft's work (an "Eldritch Location" film).

Note: This rating is not intended as a measure of quality, merely of how closely related to Lovecraftian "Weird" fiction the work is.

Reviews

Review Links:

• Richard Scheib at Moria film reviews, (link) - "(2.5/5) Essentially [begins as a] stripped-back isolation drama.... Once events start to kick in, Nine Miles Down reveals a plot that comes with a head-scratchingly left-field corniness.... This is confirmed not long after as Adrian Paul starts hearing the voices of damned souls in the sounds coming up from the pit and then thinks that survivor Kate Naura might be in league with or a manifestation of the Devil. These revelations kick in with a clunky laughability – the discovery of a physical Hell... an absurdly corny plot device...."
• Richard Cross at 20/20 Movie Reviews, (link) - "(0/4) There’s a reasonable idea for a horror movie in Nine Miles Down.... There's little that director Anthony Waller can do with the material, and even if there was he doesn't seem to possess the necessary tools to make much of a transformation. There are a few visual flourishes, some half-clever ideas that are never followed up, and a twist ending which makes everything that's gone before largely redundant."

Synopsis (SPOILERS)

 Spoiler Section (Highlight to Read)

Based on the widespread 1990s urban myth surrounding the claim that Russian scientists in Siberia had drilled so deep that they had broken through into 'hell' and recorded the 'screams of the damned' emanating from the borehole. A security expert is sent to a remote and mysteriously deserted scientific camp to investigate strange things that are happening, and discovers evidence that the scientists there drilled deep into the earth, breaking into an vast cavity containing 'something evil' which creates havoc in the camp, prompting suicides, sacrifices, and ominous messages scrawled on the walls. The plot thickens when a mysterious woman jogs in out of the desert, claims to be the last surviving member of the team, insists on leaving immediately, and before long is revealed to be telling a story that does not add up. Things get worst for the security expert when he finds recordings from deep in the well that sound like vast crowds of screaming humans, and begins seeing his dead wife and other hallucinations. The ending provides the plot twist that the pit actually contained a hallucinogenic gas, and that much of what the security expert has been seeing was all in his imagination.

Notes

Associated Mythos Elements

• TO DO