I've been waiting to encounter a movie that I didn't really have much to say about. The Burrowers is a fine movie and I would never tell anyone not to watch it, but it just didn't give me much to think about story-wise or message-wise. It's an hour and half horror Western. Think The Searchers but instead of the Comanche killing the family and taking the girl, our protagonists assume Indians were responsible for the massacre and pursue them (I believe it's the Utes in The Burrowers) instead of the creatures that live underground. Maybe the moral of The Burrowers is "Never assume because it makes an 'ass' out of 'u' and 'me.'"
Lost fans will be happy to see William Mapother in a major role. Genre fans will be excited to see Clancy Brown because Clancy Brown is awesome in everything and should be a huge star (and was also on Lost, come to think of it). There are times when The Burrowers does feel like an epic Western with impressive shots of people riding horses across the prairies and appropriately sweeping music playing. The movie loses that a bit towards the end, but it was nice to look at, though the whole look of the movie suffers from post-production tampering (why can't people just get the lighting right when they shoot it? This post-production color alteration must stop). Along similar lines, it may be easier to create CG monsters and use CG gore, but it looks terrible! Doesn't anyone care about the craft? There are methods that have been in place for 30 years that yield better results than crappy CG.
Even at 96 minutes, The Burrowers feels long. I attribute it to the fact that Clancy Brown leaves the film about halfway through and we're left without his awesome presence for the rest. There's a a sense that we're just running over the same old ground. Perhaps if the viewer was kept in the dark about what was really going on so we're trying to figure things out while the characters are the film would have had a stronger hook. As it stands... meh.
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