Under the Mountain

Good natured, pretty tame teen horror is distinguished by its attractive New Zealand urban locale, and generally likable performances from its two teen leads (supported by Neill proving he can take the goofiest dialogue and bring a gravitas and profundity to it). Monster/zombie effects are variable due to clear budgetary constraints, but are creatively realised; not entirely successful, but you can see the promise that undoubtedly motivated Neill to lend the film-makers a hand!

A kid's movie feel with adult horror bad guys, if the story weren't amazingly stupid, it could have been pretty decent. It doesn't help that the writer clearly had the IQ of a brick "You must believe in your twin-ness," the creepy old man says to the magical twins, meanwhile my eyes roll back so far into my head that they dislodge from the optic nerve.

It's like they tried to adapt an 8-12 year-old story to for a teen-age / adult audience by simply applying scares and grotesque monsters. And in doing so they failed to be either charming or scary, and just came off corny.

"An epic journey to save the world..." Twins with telepathic powers are noticed by the friendly and especially alien Mr. Jones. Once landed on Earth in a duo, but now only by the hand of the mud monsters. Slimy aliens with no good intentions, who dwell under a volcano and hatch plans for dominion on Earth. If that isn't enough misery, they also play the grumpy neighbors in their human form in the meantime...

It's generally a fairly good flick, has some nice rural views of New Zealand. Neill is good once again, trying to make the best of the material given to him. The effects aren't the greatest and the action/adventure is alright.