“The Bunker” – The evil is within.

Wow, it’s been a spell. Anywho I’ve jumped back in with what appeared to be a low-budget horror flick from 2001 called “The Bunker”. This is the third film I’ve seen that has to deal with German soldiers and sealed up bunkers during WWII, and at this point I’m starting to think they lost the war due to paranormal activities. Sadly none of these films really hit “outstanding” on any scale so I’m not sure why they keep getting made, but for what it’s worth “The Bunker” was decent enough and something I may in fact watch sometime in the future. How’s that for a ringing endorsement?

As far as haunted bunker stories go, there isn’t much variation. Generally some Nazi’s stumble upon some sort of building that they need to hide in and there’s always the one older guy who’s seen some sh&* in his time who warns everyone about “the tunnel” or “the basement”, but either through necessity or stupid curiosity everyone winds up below and starts dying. “The Bunker” is no different than this, except that the story is just a tad more interesting than some creature killing everyone off. Without giving away the ending (albeit a cop-out of an ending), the movie has flashbacks every now and then, just a few seconds long, finally leading up to the big reveal of what’s actually haunting these dudes. It’s pretty easy to guess before the ending actually occurs but meh. Unlike its siblings, “The Bunker” focuses more on the paranoia the soldiers experience while being trapped and how it starts to affect each of them in turn. It’s similar to one of my favorite horror movies of all time, “Session 9″…except not as well executed.

I wouldn’t have chosen to nap there, but that’s just me.

I’ll be honest, for a low-budget thriller like this one it was actually done decently well. The first internship I ever had was for a straight-to-DVD movie called “Halloween Night” which was downright terrible. This film didn’t rely on gore or overused explosions to freak out the audience, but rather the acting and well timed shadows. I honestly thought it was a film made in the late 80’s/early 90’s when it first started because the music and title screen was very reminiscent of John Carpenter’s early work (look at me being all connoisseur-esque). The cast is also pretty impressive, filled with actors from the UK that you’ve seen before, such as Jack Davenport, Jason Flemyng, and Eddie Marsan. Much like the Tom Cruise film “Valkyrie” they didn’t hide their accents at all, even while portraying German soldiers but if that honestly bothers you then you have bigger things to worry about. With a good cast of veteran supporting actors, they all did a good job making it seem like they are actually terrified of what the tunnels in the bunker have in store for them. Probably the best part is that very few of them are actually scared of “things” down below, but rather the American army they believe themselves to be surrounded by. Interesting to watch a WWII movie where the Americans are in a sense the bad guys.

So there you have it, easy enough storyline to follow, pretty decent acting, and no scares big enough to make you jump but rather make you glad you aren’t in their position. Out of the other bunker films I mentioned earlier, this is definitely not the best nor the worst of them.

DIRECTOR’S CUT: Not too long and creepy enough to give you slight chills, but that also might be due to the air conditioner being on too high.

FLICKCHART RATING: 957/2188

“After the Dark” – What if you had to die to survive?

This review comes with a caveat. The reason I watched it is because awhile back I noticed that my crush was starring and outside of her usual role. So popping it onto the TV last night I wound up getting sucked into a pretty intriguing story that I’ve found lots of reviewers elsewhere have torn apart. After reading why these other moviegoers disliked it so much, I think I can understand where they all went astray.

Originally titled “The Philosophers” (and probably still called that in the UK) the film is about a group of 20 students from all over the world in their last day of philosophy class in Jakarta. I’m assuming they are all studying abroad, otherwise that’s one weird school. Anyway, their professor Mr. Zimit (James D’Arcy) decides that instead of the normal last day spent cleaning your desks with shaving cream and telling that girl in the third row that you’ve been in love with her for the entire year, these students would be engaging in a final project. Choosing not to participate would result in a letter grade drop (I had a teacher threaten to do that in 4th grade), so naturally all of the kids decide to stick it out.

The premise is simple: a situation is posed where an atomic apocalypse is headed towards the class of 20 while on a field trip, and the only shelter they have is a bunker with enough oxygen to hold 10 of the students. Each student picks at random a piece of paper with an occupation on it, and from that occupation alone they need to decide among themselves who will live and who will die. The wild card is that Mr. Zimit is playing too but he does not reveal what his trait is, the students simply have to decide if he’s worth keeping around.

Pretty cool, right? Well this idea repeats itself three times with three different scenarios, each time a new trait revealed, such as an orthopedic surgeon (scenario 1)…who just happened to treat an ebola virus victim two weeks prior (season 2). As you can see, that person may have been essential in the first scenario but screw that noise when it comes to the second. I enjoyed this as it would be an interesting discussion to have with friends. In fact I couldn’t stop thinking about how much my friend Eric would enjoy being in those situations. He’d probably be so good at it that the other students would decide that he wouldn’t get a spot out of sheer spite. But I digress, he is not a character in that film.

For your final exam, you’re going to kill each other off. Good luck.

Here is my note to the other reviewers. Almost all of the negative reviews I read were due to the fact that the characters didn’t seem to carry much emotion, ie. they weren’t acting very much. I honestly think that most people would see it this way because yes, they were quite stoic and it seemed weird, UNLESS you put yourself in their world. Hear me out. The students never leave their classroom so all of the scenarios (acted out in their real world locations) are just imaginations. The kids walk around referring to previous scenarios and information they learned as if it’s just a game, which technically it is. Therefore the actors aren’t really “acting” per se, they are just living out their imaginations as a group. I’m realizing now that this is harder to explain than I thought, so if you’re lost I’m sorry.

I guess what I took away from this whole film is that this really could happen somewhere, sometime. It doesn’t have to be during an apocalypse or a cataclysmic event but the point is that choices will have to be made about who is expendable and who isn’t. The movie does a great job of distinguishing the differences between “necessary” and “wishful”. Sure, the organic farmer may be an important person to have in the bunker but that doesn’t mean the poet is an immediate negative. Everyone in the world will have their own vision of who should stay and who should go, so at most “After the Dark” gives you something to ponder.

DIRECTOR’S CUT: With the exception of the ending being kind of loose and a bit of a cop out, I found it pretty enjoyable overall. And I’m guilty for enjoying Bonnie Wright.

FLICKCHART RATING: 396/2133 (A bit high but Flickchart kept giving me crap to rate it against)