The Boogens is a 1981 American monster horror film directed by James L. Conway. Set in the small mining town of Silver City, Colorado, the film follows a group of workers reopening an abandoned silver mine that has been sealed for decades after a mysterious disaster. Their work releases the Boogens, strange reptilian creatures that have been trapped underground and begin attacking the people in and around the town. The film belongs to the early-1980s wave of creature features, but its strongest quality is its cold, snowbound atmosphere, combining old mine shafts, isolated houses and small-town winter settings with a simple but effective monster-movie premise.
The film is set in Colorado, but it was shot in Utah, with Park City as the main production location. The old mining landscape around Park City gives the film a very fitting physical identity, since the area’s real history of silver mining makes the tunnels, mine entrances and mountain-town surroundings feel natural rather than invented. Other Utah locations connected to the production include Kamas, Heber, Ontario Mine and Mayflower Mine, which helped build the film’s world of closed-off mine workings, snowy roads and isolated mountain buildings. This gives The Boogens a stronger sense of place than many low-budget monster films, with the cold Utah winter and mining-town geography doing much of the atmospheric work.
Ontario Mine
Ontario Mine has been used in both horror and modern Western crime drama. It appears in the horror film The Boogens, and as a recurring location in Marshals.
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