Underground review.
A bachelorette party gets a little wilder than usual when the group finds themselves locked in a haunted Nazi bunker. That old chestnut.
New movie reviews will not contain spoilers. Streaming Exclusively on Screambox January 9, 2024.
Underground
Directed by Lars Janssen
Written by Lars Janssen and Charlotte Dawn Potter
Starring Charlotte Dawn Potter, Sapphire Brewer-Marchant, Maaike Tol, Nadia Dawber, Caitlyn Barber and James Swanton
Underground Review
Bunker horror has become a surprisingly hot property in recent years. It makes sense. There are some incredible locations in Europe to shoot in. Abandoned bunkers are just begging to be used as a location for a horror movie. Underground follows a bit in the path of another Screambox release (Deep Fear) by making it’s setting a former Nazi bunker. A couple of concepts separate this movie from that one. First, the spooky circumstances are taken from (alleged) eyewitness accounts in the location. It helps add to the realistic feel that the film is striving for. Second…Underground is a found footage movie.
I know. I know. Found footage movies are problematic for some people. We’ve seen enough quality releases that utilize the format to justify continued usage. We’ve also seen a lot of lazy, uninspired ones that bring nothing new to the table. For every Deadstream and The Outwaters there are a dozen productions whose names aren’t worth learning. The secret to a quality found footage movie is to make sure the concept is being used for a purpose…not just because it’s easier or more cost effective.
Underground has a solid reason for being found footage. The story may not demand it…but it does justify it. A bachelorette party gets trapped in an abandoned Nazi bunker. The party was being documented before the story took its horror turn. It’s easy to buy someone filming the festivities for posterity. More importantly, the goal of the film is to present events as realistically as it can. The characters feel like real people…the unexplainable events work best juxtaposed by their grounded situation…and the found footage device helps it achieve another level of realism.
The story of the bachelorette party gone to hell is bookended by a police investigation. The lead investigator informs us, via a press conference, that this is not a ghost story. Whether he’s right or not is up for debate. What is certain about Underground is that something isn’t right in this abandoned hospital/bunker. A nice batch of creative and memorable moments await our partygoers once they find themselves trapped inside.
Before that, however, we have the customary introductory period for the characters. A lot of found footage movies stumble out of the gate trying to handle this aspect. Underdeveloped characters walking around while nothing is happening. Underground, on the other hand, presents a lively, high energy opening that shows off its lead characters’ abundant personalities. We follow the group from dress shopping to a night on the town. When they’re expelled from their taxi due to…having partied a little too hard…they find themselves stranded on the side of the road. This is where their troubles start.
They head towards the legendary bunker. Ziggy (Sapphire Brewer-Marchant) falls into a hole. The group heads down to help…and find themselves locked inside an abandoned underground Nazi hospital. Figuring that only way out is through…they head deeper into the unknown. An immediate altercation with creepy mannequins should tell them they are in for a rough night. What makes Underground a little move fun than the usual movie of its type…these characters are relatively good natured about their misadventures. Sure, there are scary things making noise in the dark…but that’s no reason to spend 90 minutes screaming about it. A grounded and realistic take on people who find themselves in a bad situation.
Mostly, we are inside the bunker. It’s a great location…and one you can actually visit in real life. Flickering lights, strange noises, apparitions that may or may not be corporeal. Underground dives into the usual bag of tricks. It also has some new ones up its sleeve. Voices echoing through the halls, a phone inside of an old display case ringing in an impossible manner, a pentagram on the floor… We’ve seen a lot of what this movie is doing before but not all of it. More importantly we haven’t seen it presented as grounded as it is here. We haven’t seen it handled as realistically as the characters here do.
Some great horror imagery is waiting down the line as the women try to find their way out. The expected infighting comes at one point. Thankfully it isn’t a major focus here. It happens to move characters where they need to be in a way that makes narrative sense. The women start to ask the same questions we would. What happens if we answer that phone? What is going on with that pentagram? Should we follow these voices? Underground works because of the characters. They feel real. They act like we would act. It’s easy to see yourself locked inside with them. That’s when a first person camera can truly shine.
Scare Value
There are some genuinely spooky things happening in Underground. It uses a lot of the tried and true found footage tricks and treats…but it layers fresh ones on top of them. It’s effective in delivering what it intends to. A movie that feels like you’re watching regular people trapped in an unexplainable, scary situation. The authentic feel makes the creepy moments work to their full effect.
3/5
Underground Link
Streaming on Screambox
