"Dead Mine" is a dreadful movie along the lines of "The Descent" except that Japanese troops from World War II are hiding in a remote cave. The protagonist, Warren Price (Les Loveday), is leading a heavily-armed group of guys with guns searching for the legendary gold horde of General Yamashita in an isolated, shutdown mine in this modest Indonesian horror thriller. Gunmen drive our heroes into the mine, and they encounter pasty-faced guys and old-fashioned samurai warriors. Eventually, they discover that hideous experiments were conducted on soldiers. Nothing struck me as remotely scary. This is one of those movies where everybody dies and we're supposed to enjoy the way that the villains—Japanese soldiers from World War II—administer death with their swords. Characterization is flat, exposition is perfunctory, while performances are adequate. The opening scene when an armed man is sucked into a hole gets things moving fast but it is nothing designed to induce long range horror. Like but never as compelling as "The Descent."
