Late at night two people, Amy (Arlene Buchmann) and Brian (Robin Sortman), are hired to blow up the entrance to an old mine called The Golden Spike. The mine opens up into an intricate cave system below where it was last mined. Inside the entrance Brian finds a cross propped up by rocks. Brian pulls up the cross. Suddenly the earth trembles and something is released. An earthquake shakes the mine. The entity kills Brian and Amy.
A couple weeks later a team is sent down into the mine to try to determine if there is enough gold in it to warrant reopening it. The leader of the operation is Myron Hemmings (Rolf Theison). With him is a geologist, Angela Platt (Diane Borcyckowski), an old prospector, Morgan (Keith Hurt), a trail leader, Geoff Calvert (Dan Lunham), Geoff’s friend Tony Ruggles (Chris Huntley), and a supernatural mystery writer and his wife, Dan and Cindy Flanders (Mark Sawicki and Terri Berland). Dan is writing a book about the mine.
The group makes its way into the mine and begins their exploration. A cave-in causes the entrance to collapse. The expedition is trapped in the mine, but they are not alone. One by one they begin to get picked off by an unknown entity.
“The Strangeness” was released in 1985 and was directed by Melanie Anne Phillips. In the credits she is listed as David Michael Hillman. Phillips was one of the few female horror movie directors of the 80’s. It is a low budget independent horror film and is a little on the obscure side.
Director Phillips stated that the opening scene was shot at “The Red Rover” mine in Los Angeles, California without permission or permits. The mine is privately owned. A month or so after shooting the scene some miners actually went into the mine to determine if it would be worth opening it up again. The miners went further into the mine than the filmmakers and ended up being asphyxiated by poison gas.
Most of the movie takes place either in the cave or at night so it is dark. Too dark to make out a lot of what is going on. The Strangeness is a Claymation creation that resembles a Lovecraftian version of a vagina. (Anything with tentacles is Lovecraftian, even vaginas.) As creatures go, it’s horrible. It’s probably a good idea that you can’t see it clearly. The creature was created by Chris Huntley, who was also one of the writers and one of the stars in the film. Huntley dubbed the creature “Binky”.
There is some tension and suspense, and the music score was good, but most of the movie itself is bland. Lots of wandering around in the dark. The music is the only thing holding the film together. There isn’t much gore or blood. What is there gets shadowed out by the lack of sufficient light. Much of the cave scenes were shot in the director’s grandparents’ basement. The walls of the cave were tin foil that was crumpled and painted black.
There is a bit of charm to film in that it is a rather admirable try on the part of the filmmakers. Unfortunately, the crude rendition of the monster and the lack of good acting make the movie even more amateur in appearance.