Miner's Massacre

Miner's Massacre is a grade-b horror film in which the horror villain is the ol' prospector who was killed by the townsfolk back in the 1850s. Y'see, Ol' Gabby has placed a curse on his lost gold. Unlike most ol' prospectors with their empty curses, he is an immortal who defends his gold personally. If anyone tries to remove any of it from his lost mine, his ghost comes after them with a big ol' pickaxe implanted into one of his arms. In other words, it's basically that fisherman dude from I Know What You Did Last Summer, except with a pickaxe instead of a fishing gaff, a duster instead of a raincoat, and an ol' prospector hat instead of a Gloucester.

NUDITY REPORT

Elina Madison strips and shows her bottom in a pre-sex scene. In theory, her breasts are also bare on camera, but that set-up is too dark to see anything.

Other amusing elements:

Karen Black is in the film as a crazy old local woman who helps with plot exposition. In a scene where she catches on fire, her stunt double is a 250 pound man.
The filmmaker visualizes an old joke. One character eats some chili, hears the call of nature, heads for the woods, drops trou, then literally gets the shit scared out of him!

The plot? Lessee now ... a bunch of young city people head out to a remote area in search of ....

Oh, wait, you know that part?

Then they have sex, and the ones who get laid are killed by ...

What's that you say? You're heard that one?

Then some of them get really greedy for the gold, and the greediest ones die a horrible ...

You know that too?

DVD info from Amazon

no widescreen
no features

Well, here's one you don't know. The two nice kids get away because they throw away the last of the gold, and the Ol' Prospector stops chasing them and returns to his grave, consarn it. But then the cop who finds the kids goes back to the mine to check for clues, finds the purse with some of the miner's gold in it, shouts "hey, didn't you kids lose this ....?" He walks toward them, thus starting to remove the gold from the mine ...

And I'll bet you'll never guess what happens last.

The Critics Vote

no major reviews online

The People Vote ...

IMDB summary. 1.8 out of 10.

no theatrical release

The meaning of the IMDb score: 7.5 usually indicates a level of excellence equivalent to about three and a half stars from the critics. 6.0 usually indicates lukewarm watchability, comparable to approximately two and a half stars from the critics. The fives are generally not worthwhile unless they are really your kind of material, equivalent to about a two star rating from the critics, or a C- from our system. Films rated below five are generally awful even if you like that kind of film - this score is roughly equivalent to one and a half stars from the critics or a D on our scale. (Possibly even less, depending on just how far below five the rating is.

My own guideline: A means the movie is so good it will appeal to you even if you hate the genre. B means the movie is not good enough to win you over if you hate the genre, but is good enough to do so if you have an open mind about this type of film. C means it will only appeal to genre addicts, and has no crossover appeal. (C+ means it has no crossover appeal, but will be considered excellent by genre fans, while C- indicates that it we found it to be a poor movie although genre addicts find it watchable). D means you'll hate it even if you like the genre. E means that you'll hate it even if you love the genre. F means that the film is not only unappealing across-the-board, but technically inept as well. Any film rated C- or better is recommended for fans of that type of film. Any film rated B- or better is recommended for just about anyone. We don't score films below C- that often, because we like movies and we think that most of them have at least a solid niche audience. Now that you know that, you should have serious reservations about any movie below C-.

Based on this description, I originally scored it a C-. I didn't enjoy it at all, and I often laughed at it, which is not a good sign for a horror film, but I thought it was probably a bare minimum bottom feeder as a genre flick. It's unoriginal, but not necessarily incompetent. The IMDb voters so far do not agree with that assessment. It seems that everyone hated it as much as I did, so my score may be too high. Lacking any support from genre fans, it's probably a D or an E.