Unless you’re a naked mole rat or a worm-lizard, you were never meant to live your life out underground like the poor doomsday denizens of Apple TV’s “Silo.“
Season 3 has revealed how a trillionaire industrialist named Per Stenson (Colin Hanks) funded the insane project to build 50 subterranean bunkers in Georgia, housing 10,000 people each, as a bold failsafe effort against humanity’s inevitable extinction in the face of global nanotech warfare.
Hollywood has mined the sci-fi subgenre of underground exploratory movies for decades, and it’s amusing to see how real science has been either faithfully depicted or completely ignored over the years.
Regardless of geological accuracy, venturing into unnatural environments unfit for sun-seeking individuals makes for fantastic drama, from titles like “Journey to the Center of the Earth” and “The Core” to “The Mole People” and “City of Ember.”
Let’s burrow into this list of subterranean sci-fi flicks to see which ones rise to the top!
10. “The Mole People”
Release date: December 1, 1956 | Director: Virgil W. Vogel
We sure love a campy black-and-white creature feature, and this 1950s favorite ticks all the boxes.
Descend thousands of feet into the center of the Earth and meet this unknown Egyptian-like empire of darkness where vicious mole monsters exist in subterranean lairs. Archaeologists and scientists join a globe-trotting expedition to find a tunnel leading to this lost civilization of pale-skinned Sumerians who enslave these hideous mole mutants to harvest their mushroom crops.
Human sacrifices, a corny romance, and truly frightening makeup effects make this cult B-movie well worth a watch. And who knew a flashlight could become such a potent weapon!
9. “10 Cloverfield Lane”
Release date: March 11, 2016 | Director: Dan Trachtenberg
John Goodman (Howard) stars in this slightly deranged sequel to 2008’s “Cloverfield” that’s considered part of the whole interconnected Cloverfield Universe that also includes the 2018 space-based thriller, “The Cloverfield Paradox.”
Most of the film takes place in an underground survival bunker after a girl named Michelle (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) is rescued from a car crash by Howard and taken inside the shelter where Emmett (John Gallagher Jr.), the bunker’s designer, also exists.
Howard and Emmett try to convince Michelle that the outside world has been poisoned by an alien invasion, but she’s not buying it. With threats above ground trying to get inside, intense paranoia and jealousy growing within, this smart little gem becomes an interesting successor to producer J.J. Abrams and director Matt Reeves’ “Cloverfield” that delivers the big scares.
8. “The Core”
Release date: March 28, 2003 | Director: Jon Amiel
Toss most scientific logic out the window and just strap in for a super silly but entertaining romp into the bowels of the Earth.
Loosely based on Jules Verne’s Journey to the Center of the Earth” and packing an ensemble cast that includes Aaron Eckhart, Hilary Swank, Delroy Lindo, Stanley Tucci, Bruce Greenwood, Alfre Woodard, and Richard Jenkins, “The Core” is no cerebral affair, to be certain, but it packs ambitious set pieces and great visual effects… for the time.
The Earth’s inner core has stopped spinning, and a group of scientists must go down deep inside a special drilling vessel and restart the core with atom bombs before the world tears itself apart from magnetic anomalies.
All ends well, making this kooky B-movie a guilty pleasure.
7. “Journey to the Center of the Earth”
Release date: July 11, 2008 | Director: Eric Brevig
“We’re still falling!” This 3D remake of the 1959 classic stars Brendan Fraser as an acclaimed scientist on the hunt for a missing brother, accompanied by his young nephew (Josh Hutcherson) and a mountaineer (Anita Briem).
The VFX are updated from the ’50s version, but it lacks the earnestness and charm that the original adaptation carries. Perhaps we’re all just too jaded and have lost our sense of wonder in these complex modern times. This 2008 project definitely elicits more of a YA-type entertainment but sticks pretty close to the source material, with special effects that have no right to look this good after 18 years.
CGI has definitely taken a turn for the worse in the last decade, and this beautiful film helps prove that point. It’s packed with rampaging dinosaurs, glowing lava, rickety raft rides, Avatar-like flora, and toothy sea monsters.
Don’t think too hard, and let the sci-fi fantasy adventure unfold.
6. “At The Earth’s Core”
Release date: July 15, 1976 | Director: Kevin Connor
England’s Amicus Productions takes a stab at the classic 1914 book from fantasy master Edgar Rice Burroughs, which postulates the existence of a hollow Earth containing an entire prehistoric civilization.
This cult movie is pure Saturday afternoon popcorn entertainment, with Peter Cushing as a Victorian scientist who’s invented a behemoth drill and his strapping American partner, played by Doug McClure, as they plunge 4,000 miles into the planet’s interior on an exploratory mission.
It’s stuffed with silly rubber-suited monsters and light-hearted dialogue that make you completely overlook the campy winged beasts nourished by the blood of sacrificial maidens!
5. “The Descent”
Release date: July 8, 2005 | Director: Neil Marshall
Spelunking, or cave exploring, is an unnerving hobby for anyone with even a mild case of claustrophobia, so if you have a fear of tight spaces — especially those inhabited by marauding cannibal humanoids — then this might be one to avoid.
Marshall’s movie takes place in a network of unexplored caverns where six adventurous women encounter a race of flesh-eating feral beings. Discovered in an unmapped region of North Carolina’s Appalachian Mountains, these nimble creatures have existed down in the Earth’s depths for thousands of years.
It’s a bloody good horror romp with excellent Crawler effects but can be disturbing for those of a more delicate constitution. It did make enough box office bucks to spawn a solid 2009 sequel!
4. “First Men in the Moon”
![First Men in the Moon (1964) ORIGINAL TRAILER [HD 1080p] - YouTube](https://img.youtube.com/vi/0zxAiUQu0v8/maxresdefault.jpg)
Release date: August 6, 1964 | Director: Nathan Juran
Five years before the Apollo 11 mission that sent Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin to the moon in July of 1969, came “First Men in the Moon”, which took its cast deep beneath the lunar surface. This rousing sci-fi flick is adapted from the 1901 novel of the same name by H.G. Wells.
The storyline tracks an international moon expedition that discovers evidence of a secret British mission some six decades earlier. It also showcases legendary stop-motion pioneer Ray Harryhausen’s Dynamation techniques in depicting the underground dwelling insectoid Selenite beings and caterpillar-ish Moon Cattle.
The movie’s dual timelines, flashing back from the present to that 19th-century mission, provide an interesting framing device hinting at the notion that the Selenites were doomed by a common cold à la Wells’s “The War of the Worlds.”
3. “City of Ember”
![City Of Ember - Official® Trailer [HD] - YouTube](https://img.youtube.com/vi/CeHf7UhHpmE/maxresdefault.jpg)
Release date: October 10, 2008 | Director: Gil Kenan
Just like the post-apocalyptic bunkers in “Silo,” this movie also deals with a massive underground city meant to serve as humanity’s last hope for 200 years in case of a nuclear war or other extinction-level calamities.
The plot follows two teens named Lina (Saoirse Ronan) and Doon (Harry Treadaway) who discover clues to an escape route left behind by the original architects of the vast subterranean shelter. It’s based on the 2003 sci-fi novel, “The City of Ember,” by American author Jeanne DuPrau and offers some impressive production design and engaging characters.
There are a lot of coincidental similarities here shared with “Silo,” including a seriously shady Mayor (Bill Murray) hiding the truth from survivors, droning machinery, food and supplies running low, causing civil unrest, and even an appearance by Tim Robbins, who plays the duplicitous Bernard Holland in Apple TV’s hit dystopian series.
2. “Hidden”
Release date: September 15, 2015 | Director: The Duffer Brothers
Hidden is a highly underrated gem that has sadly been forgotten by audiences over the last decade.
Written and directed by The Duffer Brothers, who brought us five incredible seasons of Netflix’s sci-fi horror series Stranger Things, “Hidden” tells the story of a family who stumbles across a fallout shelter after military bombing drives them underground. Following on from some sort of viral outbreak, humanoid creatures now try to hunt them down as they fight for survival.
This was The Duffers’ first feature film and stars Alexander Skarsgård, Andrea Riseborough, and Emily Alyn Lind in a low-budget thriller released by Warner Bros.
“Hidden” was barely noticed on release, and we think that’s a real shame. It’s got A Quiet Place vibes, and we totally recommend searching for it on major streaming platforms.
1. “Journey To The Center of the Earth”
Release date: December 16, 1959 | Director: Henry Levin
Here’s an earnest attempt to adapt one of the true classics of science fiction literature, Jules Verne’s “Journey to the Center of the Earth,” which was first published back in 1864.
This lavish production begins at the mouth of an Icelandic volcano where a rift in the Earth has provided a possible passageway into the planet’s interior. Along for the ambitious trek are a famed geologist (James Mason), his loyal assistant (Pat Boone), a widow (Arlene Dahl), and a burly Icelander (Peter Rowan) as they discover hidden marvels while trying to evade a rival scientist (Thayer David).
It’s a breathtaking movie filmed in vivid De Luxe color to highlight all the wondrous inner-Earth rock formations, sparkling quartz grottoes, luminous inner oceans, and the fabled Lost City of Atlantis.
