Underground

"Underground" had potential to be great, but it never made it above less than mediocrity, sadly enough. Why? Well because of the lack of lighting. Now, I know that it was taking place in an underground bunker, but most of the scenes were so dark that it was hard to get a view of what was going on. Sure, it added to the realism of the lack of light far underneath the ground, but as a viewer of a movie, I would like to see what was going on. I didn't pay money to just sit around and look at poor-lit images all through an entire movie.

The story in "Underground" is the American government has been conducting secret experiments underground, gee - haven't we seen that before? And get this, of course there had to be some reference to notorious Dr. Mengele from World War II - just to add some diabolic twist to the storyline. Anyway, a bunch of young people are attending a rave at an abandoned military base - yep, you guessed it - the exact same military base where the government were conducting these inhuman experiments. After running afoul with gang-bangers, the people get trapped underground. But they aren't alone, they are being stalked by the genetically altered hybrids of man-beasts.

"Underground" had potential to be much more than it turned out to be. Don't get me wrong, the storyline - although cheesy and been seen numerous times before - wasn't all that bad. The storyline worked out well enough, and there was a great sense of claustrophobia and paranoia in the movie. But the complete lack of proper lighting really made the movie unbearable to sit through. Which was a shame.

As for the effects in the movie, well they were actually alright, and this subspecies of genetically altered humans were looking great. They did have that ferocious beastly quality to them. Just a shame they were mostly kept in the shadows or near-complete darkness most of the time.

"Underground" had a great ensemble of actors and actresses who did put on good performances. I think the only one I recognized in this movie was Jack Donner (playing Gunther). So it was nice to have a horror movie with a cast of fresh, new faces for a change.

Despite having potential, "Underground" never really kicked it off for me, because the lack of lighting really brought down the enjoyment of the movie. This style of keeping everything, and I do mean everything, in darkness is so early 1980's horror movie. It worked nicely back in the day, but today we want to see the dread and horror stalking us beneath the surface of the ground.

Neil Marshall's THE DESCENT was a fine stab at a survival horror yarn, featuring some excellent locations (those dank and dismal caves were a perfect backdrop for the scares) and a race of nasty villains who seemed to be descended from Gollum. UNDERGROUND is a cheap and nasty American version of the above, with the setting swapped to an underground military bunker.

Unfortunately, UNDERGROUND has much in common with modern-day B-movies as it's the kind of film you watch and mildly enjoy in places, but soon forget about once the credits roll. The script and production values of this film are poor, with much of the running time consisting of too much repetitive wandering around in semi-darkness. Needless to say the characters are bland and undistinguished, with nobody to root for.

The monsters in the film are passable, and I enjoyed the couple of fight scenes that we get here and there (the choreography isn't too shabby). As with many B-movies, the gore content is ramped up to compensate for failings elsewhere, and there are a couple of great gags involving eyeball violence and a twist on the old "ripped in half" joke. Sadly, the film as a whole is just too dark and bland to be worth watching, though.

Typical horror/survival movie, a bunch of young folk trapped in an underground army base, facing zombie like creatures, with super human powers. This "Sitting Duck " cast is an attractive lot. But they are void of any real acting skills and the script is no help what so ever. Of course they wander through darkness, argue with one another and no horror movie would be complete without the "Hey! Lets Split Up" routine, that never works in any fright film. Now the good news is, the movie is made very well and there are some interesting moments and very professional camera work. So Underground turns out to be a cut above ground, give it a watch. It reminded me a bit of "Descent" only not half as good.

After a fight gets out of hand a group of friends run for cover but find themselves fighting for their lives against ravenous creatures lurking beneath their rave party.

Over dramatic, low budget horror flick that has some fantastic makeup and special effects in amongst the unnecessary fights,hammy dialogue and slow motion scenes.

Underground starts off very promising with the opening of an army squad fending off some nasty looking super genetic humanoids, then director Rafael Eisenman introduces us to an underground rave in an air hanger on a military base that goes on far too long. Writer Charles Morris Jr. borrows heavily from Marshall's Descent (2005) and Smith's Creep (2004).

Underground's weakest link is that it's not very tight and scenes are drawn out. It's well lit and shot with some good pumping tracks in the soundtrack.The score is a mixed bag there's some great music cues but then it borrows from familiar scores and overcooks them.

The young cast of actors including Eric Abercrombie and Mira Antonova do there best with the script. The Eli Wallach with a German accent lookalike aside - there's some nice touches, a creature bursting out of urinal, torn off ears, lobbed off arms, spooky tunnels and creepy corridors.

A lot of effort has clearly gone into Underground, it has a 'film' look and with some tighter editing it may have helped the viewing experience. Rafael Eisenman uses every film trick in the book and clearly has ability but it just isn't a polished enough production, nevertheless it's a lot bloodier, effective and atmospheric than the abundance of cheap looking horror DTV films.

Despite it's unevenness there's worst ways to burn a hour and a half.

It's your usual 'young people get trapped (this time underground) and have to fight for their lives against mutants' movie.

It's all very much in the Wrong Turn vein. You know, the cast are good looking. There are lots of pretty, short-skirted females screaming the place down. The guys run around all tough and are, funnily enough, the easiest slain.

But underground it's dark, and thus we're often faced with a too dark picture. Half the time I couldn't see what was going on.

The ending couldn't have come quick enough as I was becoming increasingly bored with this movie. It's 'b' rated stuff, nothing special.

4/10.