33 miners are trapped in a collapsed mine, several thousand feet below the earth’s surface…they manage to make contact with the topside world, but are informed that it will take several weeks, if not months, to rescue them…they are given food, water, fresh clothing, and other amenities to make their entombment more tolerable…but something lurks deep beneath the earth, distant groans and howls can be heard in the darkness…and then, one of the miners wanders off to a dark, distant part of the cave, lets out a bloodcurdling scream, and is never seen again…
C’mon…you just know this story’s being pitched left and right in Hollywood as we speak. It practically writes itself!
There was the Descent. Not set in a mine but the basic premise is the same: people trapped underground, trying to get out, being attacked by …something.
Actually, you don’t even need a monster. Just make the cavern even more cramped, add tension among the workers (e.g., have it take place when the miners are trying to unionize to improve working conditions and, at the time of the cave-in, there’s somebody from management visiting the work site), cabin fever, and just watch everybody psychologically unravel.
In 1925 Collins, a cave explorer, was trapped in Sand Cave, in Kentucky. At first rescuers could get food and water to him, then a cave-in cut off everything except air and voice contact. For two weeks there was a media frenzy as rescuers tried to get him out, but he died before they could reach him.
His story has been retold in books, movies, songs, even a Broadway musical.
Mines and miners have been rich material for science fiction and horror for almost 70 years or more. Seems like miners are always digging up strange, alien orbs. Or running into some creature that lives deep below the surface.
I heard one of the rescued miners kept a diary. That should be very useful in creating a movie about their experiences. Plus all the stories the other men will tell. Should make a great movie.
Dunno about horror, but I would imagine that Chile Willies would be the gay porn film that the incident will inspire. “They’re trapped underground with no women and they want some lovin’. These men are about to become closer than they ever thought they would.” And the final scene would include a rescuer incredulously asking, “What do you mean, ‘Come back later’?”
Two possibile variations: one of the trapped miners is a serial killer, and as the body count grows no one knows who it is.
Or, it could be that the cave-in killed a bunch of miners and the survivors are the only witnesses to the fact that it was due to the EEEEEVIL™ corporation’s disregard for safety; and so there’s a subplot that the mine owners are actually trying to sabotage the rescue effort so they can blame the accident on worker carelessness.
Or running into some creature that lives deep below the surface.