Director – John Carl Buechler, Screenplay – Antonio Olivas, Producers – Peter Lupus III & Michael G. Velenzuela, Photography – James LeGoy, Music – Pierpaolo Tiano, Special Effects – Bob Gleason & Eddie Ross, Makeup Effects – Magical Media Industries (Supervisor – John Carl Buechler), Production Design – Mark Harper. Production Company – Wanted Entertainment.
Cast
Sean Hines (Nick Berman), Carrie Bradac (Claire Berman), Steve Wastell (Axl), Sangie (Tori), Rich Majeske (Hayden), Elina Madison (Rox Ann), Alexandra Ford (Eve), Karen Black (Aunt Nelly), John Phillip Law (Sheriff Frank Murphy), Richard Lynch (Old Man Prichard), Martin Kove (Caleb), Vernon Wells (Jeremiah Stone), Bradford H. Arden (Forty-Niner), Shadrach Smith (Jared), Skye Myers (Bertie)
Plot
Six friends travel up to the old abandoned ghost town of Sutterville. They have received a letter from their friend Jared containing a gold nugget and part of a map that leads the way to a goldmine. On the way there, they learn the story of the evil prospector Jeremiah Stone who was killed by locals in 1851. There they are attacked by the resurrected Jeremiah. They realise that in disturbing his legendary hoard of gold, they have awakened a curse he placed on the locals who killed him.
John Carl Buechler (1952-2019) is best known as a makeup effects artist. In the early 1980s, Buechler formed MMI, a makeup effects company that is variously said to stand for Mechanical and Makeup Imageries or Magical Media Industries, and was responsible for the creature effects on almost every Charles Band production. The Bands offered Buechler the opportunity to make his directorial debut on one of the segments of the anthology The Dungeonmaster/Ragewar: The Challenges of Excalibrate (1984). Buechler subsequently went on to direct the feature-length Troll (1986), Cellar Dweller (1988) and Ghoulies III: Ghoulies Go to College (1991) for the Bands, as well as Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood (1988) and various other B films including Watchers Reborn (1998), Deep Freeze (2001), Curse of the Forty Niner, A Light in the Forest (2002), The Eden Formula (2006) and The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (2006).
Buechler brings together a surprising number of actors with a name history, including John Philip Law, aka Diabolik and Sinbad in The Golden Voyage of Sinbad (1973); Vernon Wells of Mad Max 2 (1981) fame who has since maintained a B movie career; prolific B horror actor Richard Lynch; and Martin Kove, the former star of tv’s Cagney & Lacey (1982-9) who has had a subsequent career in B action movies. Most of these only have 1-2 scenes apiece and you get the impression the film could only afford them a day or so’s shooting. The one who gets the most screen time is Karen Black as the aunt living in the backwoods cabin, where Black rises to form and gives another of the dotty performances that dominated the last two decades of her career.
Bradford H. Arden as the resurrected prospector
The main cast, all young unknowns, are fairly much the usual complement that turn up in a slasher film where, true to form, the jerks and the bitchy girl get killed first. Things never get any more undressed than a scene where one girl does a striptease from behind. Buechler’s Magical Media Industries also provides the film’s makeup and gore effects.
Buechler delivers Curse of the Forty Niner as though it were a film where he was still back making low-budget makeup effects driven vehicles for Charles Band. There’s the novelty effect of the resurrected prospector, who never gets to do much, and some occasional gore effects. All of the plotting is standard and by the book – there is really no more to the film than the above plot description filled out with assorted deaths. None of it seems delivered with any notable distinction or originality.
