Soft for Digging (2001)

User Rating:

5.6/10   

Director:

J.T. Petty

Writer:

J.T. Petty (writer)

Genre:

Drama | Horror | Thriller

Plot:

A man wanders into the woods in search of his cat and witnesses a murder. |

Plot Keywords:

Very Little Dialogue

Awards:

1 win

Cast

Edmond Mercier	...	Virgil Manoven
Sarah Ingerson	...	Claire
Andrew Hewitt	...	Shovelman
Kate Petty	...	Paperboy
Wayne Nickel	...	Shakespeare (as Wayne Knickel)
Joshua Billings	...	Dick
David Husko	...	Priest
Mia Todd	...	Orange Vested Citizen
Max	...	Harpo

Runtime:

74 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Certification:

UK:15

Movie Connections:

Featured in S&Man (2006)

refreshing and creepy horror flick

"Soft For Digging" has no pretty teens or premed students, no thrash/rap/metal music, and very little in the way of dialog. Now all that was a very refreshing change from most movies these days, to me, anyway.

Virgil is an 70-something man living by himself in an old isolated house in rural Maryland, with his cat. One day, his cat makes a break for it and he goes in pursuit, coffee cup in hand. He wanders through the woods for a while, and happens across a car, with a young man, a small girl, and something covered with the blanket. He attempts to wave at the young girl, but she merely stares. When the man gets a shovel & goes into the woods with the bundle & the girl, Virgil follows at a distance, only to come across the man seemingly doing away with the little girl. Virgil then runs for his life. When he's back he tries to tell what he's seen, but despite search parties & police investigations, no one can find anything. So of course they think he's just a loony old man.

After a couple false alarms about the supposedly missing girl, Virgil is left a brochure for a retirement home by one of the cops, and in that he finds a clue, which leads him to hop in his old Volvo & take a road trip to an orphanage. And what he finds there, is anything but what he expected.

This is not your basic slam-bang horror flick and it takes a bit of patience, because it does have a slow pace. But I didn't find it at all boring. The settings are perfect for the story, and the lack of dialog does not detract from the eeriness of the film. I understood the ending just fine but I can't say I liked it. I'm glad my cat was asleep and not watching. 8 out of 10.