TIFF Review: THE BURROWERS
More ominous than it is outright frightening JT Petty's The Burrowers is an odd little beast that just so happens to be populated with odd little beasts. But put aside your creature feature expectations with this one because Petty is aiming to give you something different, something unique. Though the creatures are certainly present The Burrowers plays more as a psychological thriller than a full bore horror film, it is a film far more concerned with the people the creatures prey upon than with the creatures themselves.
We begin in the Dakotas at the height of the Old West. Irish immigrant Coffey is in love with the local settler MaryAnne and determined to make her his bride. The feelings seem mutual and he has asked her father for her hand but before things can progress any further MaryAnne's family homstead comes under attack. Four are killed, six are missing. And when Coffey arrives on the scene the only logical conclusion is that the family has been taken by Indians.
Coffey is wrong, of course, but that doesn't stop him from rounding up a pair of local ranchers - played by Clancy Brown and Lost's William Mapother, who seems to have been born for this sort of role - and setting off in pursuit. But pursuit of what? All they can do is guess who took the family, the only clues around the homestead a number of strange holes in the ground. And when they enlist the help of the local army detachment the commanding officer seems far more interested in torturing Indians than in doing anything that might actually be useful. And then they meet a native woman who talks vaguely of the burrowers ...
No doubt about it, though the creatures get more than their share of screen time and drive the narrative of the picture this is a film much more concerned with the constant break downs in communication. Everybody is making faulty assumptions about everybody else, nobody takes the time to really stop and figure out what is going on - a situation that leads to so much needless tragedy, since the signs are all around them if only they would take the time to look. This is a film about entrenched enemies, about it being easier to blame the supposed enemy you know ragardless of whether they are actually to blame or not - a fairly relevant point to make in today's political climate - and the consequences of that. Is it accidental that the creatuers anaesthetize their victims before killing them so that they die painlessly while the humans indulge in pointless torture in the name of extracting information they know they will not get? I highly doubt it.
The Burrowers leans more towards the western end of the horror-western label, playing out as a film far more about atmosphere and human relationships than anything else. Loaded with strong performances and beautifully shot, it is a slow burner of a picture, one that doesn't overwhelm but lingers well beyond the final frames. An intriguing blend of genres.
