UNDERGROUND *

 

Directed by Lars Janssen.
Starring Charlotte Dawn Potter, Nadia Dawber, Caitlyn Barber.
Horror, UK, 101 minutes.

 

Released in the UK On Digital and VOD 26th February by Miracle Media

 

Sometimes it only takes a couple of minutes to realise what exactly you are in for with some low budget horror films, particularly of the found footage variety. While some writers and directors look for new ways to bend the genre and its strict format to the story there are other producers who feel they can point the camera at whatever flimsy excuse of a story they have conjured. Director Lars Janssen tries to base a 100-minute feature around a seemingly atmospheric location. Unfortunately, within the first couple of minutes the suspicion that you are witnessing the latter variety becomes all too apparent.

 

A hen night in Guernsey, consisting of an unfortunate cast portraying the most annoying bunch of characters of this year and any other, takes an unfortunate turn when they are dumped by an annoyed taxi driver in the middle of nowhere for being drunk. They stumble, literally, into a vast underground hospital constructed by the Nazi’s during their occupation. The night soon turns into a terrifying, for them, ordeal.

 

A complete failure on every single level this has all the risible cliches that make many low budgets found footage films such an ordeal. Why they keep filming is never addressed or convincingly realised and there is a complete lack of atmosphere or style here. Once the ladies descend into the underground facility, after half an hour of watching them play the least convincing group of drunks ever, we are subjected to watching these women wander around a near pitch black setting where they point the torches on their phones at their own faces so we can see them because it seems that the director and producers did not realise that if their cast pointed the torches at where they were going then all you would have is a series of shots of vast empty, featureless corridors for seventy minutes! The same amount of time that Rob Savage managed to make a zoom meeting during lock down into one of the most exciting horror debuts of the decade so far with HOST.

 

As the running time crawls by, the cast of women even begin to grate on each other's nerves as well as our own. Repetitive arguments of no consequence echo across the empty corridors for lengthy periods of time in an often-incoherent manner. If you were to take this away however then you would have next to nothing else to show here. A complete lack of plot, interesting or convincing characters and not even one shock or scare on display has you wondering how this has managed to secure a release while Chris Cronin’s genuinely atmospheric and chilling THE MOOR, a highlight from last year’s FrightFest, that stretched the format to excellent and involving effect on a low budget, still awaits a distribution deal. Waiting for that to get a proper release would be a better use of your time than watching this.

 

Iain MacLeod.