UNEARTH IS PLEASANTLY UNSETTLING

We have covered films and documentaries in the past that dealt with the issues of fracking and how it can break down or purge communities to even destroying your health.  The truth is that there are corporations that are situating themselves in areas where they can make a profit.   Some of those corporations are already there and have been for generations in which they have been destroying the surrounding ecosystem thus putting the health of its citizens at high risk.  Directors John C. Lyons and Dorota Swies bring their take on the eco-horror genre with their film Unearth live-streamed recently at this year’s edition of the Fantasia Film Festival.  The film comments on the destruction of common land by corporations who are ready to bully any community in their way to profit.  Sometimes even those families that are promised monetary gain by selling their land are never compensated like many of the First Nations of Indigenous communities seen all over this continent.  Furthermore, the destruction of our environment through fracking cannot even be sustained or monitored because these practices are short term gains over long term consequences.  Guess who pays for that?

Unearth follows two farming families in Silverthorn, Pennsylvania who are both doing their best to put food on the table.  One family is headed by George Lomack, played by Marc Blucas, who must take care of both of his daughters Kim and Heather, played by Brooke Sorenson and Rachel McKeon respectively, and a newly grandaughter.  Times are tough as his garage is seeing no business and the family are looking for ways to spend less on their bills.  The other family is headed by Kathryn Dolan, played by none other than legendary, Adrienne Barbeau, who is also trying her best to keep her family and the farm together.  Her rebellious family member Christina Dolan, played by Allison McAfee, is trying to fulfill her dream of being a photographer.  Kathryn knows what is best for the family and the farm as she tries to convince Christina she will be the next to take care of the farm when others are not able to or simply won’t be around.  There is immediate tension between the two families which also includes a steamy love triangle to make things much more complicated.

The supposed saving grace of the film is a company called Patriot Exploration who comes in and tries to buy the land from the two families to get the fracking going.  George caves in thinking he is going to bear profit for every square hectare he has so he allows the corporation to come in and set shop.  The film then fast forwards a year later and we can see the camera focussing on the actual digging of George’s farm and the spooky ooze that comes out of the drilling notifying the audience that something bad is around the corner.  The noise, the burning and the chaos are a lot for the Dolans and the Lomacks to handle.  Once the ooze starts to get into the streams and into the water and into the food and their bodies, hell starts to break loose and there is no turning back.  The body horrors in all of them begin to start as they start experiencing coughs, headaches, vomiting, paranoia, and above all hatred for one another and themselves.  At this point, you start to wonder if the people in Flint, Michigan experience the same thing.  You also may think if this is the result of COVID-19.

“If you build it, they will come,” was one of the great quotes of the movie Field of Dreams referring to that of Shoeless Joe who would come from out from the cornfields and onto the baseball diamond.  In this instance, what Patriot Exploration has done is made nightmares rather than dreams come to the Lomacks and the Dolans.  The nightmare is a raw vision in the eyes of director John C. Lyons and Dorota Swies that happens at a drop of a hat in the second half of the film when everyone is truly falling from grace almost as grotesque and groundbreaking as Darren Aronofsky’s Requiem for a Dream.  This is what should have happened in Richard’s Stanley’s Colour Out of Space but the goofy lead acting by Nicolas Cage did not save that film and it just trickled down to the rest of the cast.  In Unearth, the lead acting of Adrienne Barbeau saves the bunch and gives the audience a good glimpse of what eco-terrorism is all about.

www.unearthmovie.com