Unearthed
Unearthed
| 01 January 2010 (USA)
Unearthed Trailers

In the near future.... The world is in turmoil. The atmosphere is thick and heavy with pollution and all natural resources are nearing exhaustion. Nations grow desperate and many are willing to fight each other for what little remains. The situation is rapidly spiraling out of control. In an urgent bid to solve the problem, missions are launched to explore the universe for planets that may contain alternative sources of energy. On the edge of space,one of the mining ships, The Ezekiel, finds an uncharted planet that reveals signs of a possible fuel resource. Two crew members are chosen to undertake a prospecting mission to the desolate rock, in order to take samples and survey the surface for later analysis. The mission goes well, until they reach 'grid reference 3894' where they unexpectedly descend into a world they could only imagine in their nightmares and unearth a dark and terrifying truth.

Reviews
Alan Premel

Outstanding. If you haven't taken the 20 minutes to see this short film you need to. It is exactly what we need and want in a sci-fi based based movie. Loved everything about it. This is the type of production that needs 15 million in funding to take this to the next level. I had read that the ending was something you wouldn't expect and I admit I was completely surprised and entertained, wow, thanks. And just think, something low budget and basic graphics can accomplish something that movies like Prometheus cannot.Intro is rough with limited graphics but that is something that can be fixed with more funding. I appreciated several aspects of this production because I had a hard time distinguishing what parts were CGI and animated and which parts were maybe real actors or done with time lapse. The pace was slow and it should have been. It raised a level of wonderment and mystery about what could be around the next turn or corner. At the turning point I really had no idea which direction this was going to go and every direction I had thought about this film going it did not go which I appreciated. A new line of thought that I had never considered and I appreciated that. Very cool.

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Theo Robertson

A spaceship makes an exploratory mission . Arriving at its destination the two man crew walk along the surface , the ground gives way and one of the crewman falls in to a cavern and is incapacitated . Waiting for the rescue mission to arrive his colleague explores the cavern only to find that the architecture resembles something made by some sort of civilization The first thing to strike you about UNEARTHED is the look of the movie . It doesn't resemble live action but at the same time it doesn't resemble animation either . It has a look similar to the Pixar movies and truth be told it's not unimpressive . In fact none of the technical aspects to this short give cause to complaint though you could be pedantic and state that if you were standing on the surface of the Moon then you wouldn't be able to see the stars in space down to the glare of the Moon's surface being too bright but this is a common cinematic mistake - people expect to see stars from the Moon's surface and therefore the audience gets stars This sets up the narrative as the explorers find themselves in a cavern and one of them goes on a search . There is a strong air of mystery to this and the story rests on a shock payoff at the end . If you've never heard of Pierre Boulle's Monkey World or seen its more famous film adaptation then the ending will pull the rug from under your feet . Unfortunately I did manage to work out what the ending was before it was revealed on screen which whilst not ruining the ending meant that the big surprise was lost . It also meant there was a slight lack of internal logic of having the two astronauts speak perfect English with American accents but again this is down to narrative convention and I'm guessing it's a bit like the line in the Rose episode of DOCTOR WHO that lots of planets have a North America As far as short films go UNEARTHED is very much engaging . What stops it from being a classic short film is that the concept has been done before and isn't entirely original . Perhaps conscious of this the makers have invested a lot of time and trouble in to the visual aspects of the short and that is more than enough to keep you watching

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