Subterano

True, the special effects are a little lame in this low budget Australian movie, and the location for most of the action -- a parking garage -- is pretty cheap.

But, darn it. I was entertained.

One thing, though: This could be a good children's movie if all the four-letter words were removed.

Eleven people are trapped in an underground parking lot, where they must battle their way through it against lethal toys in a real-life virtual-reality game. I rented "Subterano" for no reason in particular, having never read anything about it but passing it hundreds of times on the video store shelf (Lets just say I have a lot of free time on my hands), but upon checking IMDb after renting it I found predominately poor reviews. Perhaps it was because I didn't expect much, I thoroughly enjoyed "Subterano". It may owe one-too-many nods to 1997's brilliant "Cube", and the futuristic clothing may be pretty silly, but there's plenty to like here.

For a low-budget movie, writer/director Esben Storm has done a great job with the film visually. Despite being filmed almost exclusively in a parking lot, the lighting is interesting and attractive (Lots of filters are used in this film to good effect) and there's enough tense action that thing never get boring.

The acting is surprisingly good for the most part, John Clayton and Alex Dimitriades being the best here. Everyone else is good too, but some of the characters could be rather annoying at times (The baby-faced teen girl being a prime example).

The special effects are good. Most direct-to-video films resort to cartoony and unconvincing CG, but here the computer effects are actually quite good, and there are some fun, gruesome death scenes (I'm not going to give them away) here and there. Thankfully, the gore isn't CG.

It's not a perfect film by any means, the script can be thin in places and the music is terrible at times, but "Subterano" was a fun, fast-paced sci-fi thriller that's certainly a stones-throw ahead of the brainless, CGI-laden "sci-fi" films produced by Hollywood these days. Give it a chance and you might like it.

6.5/10.

Just saw a Great Scifi movie..Its called Subterano.. This movie's plot was virtual reality in actual reality.. A wierd collection of people have been trapped in a underground car park. There is a killer/good guy, a sexy babe as his ex wife, a group of cyber punks, a security guard babe and a old computer nerd bum. These ppl are forced to play a game of Subterano.. Subterano is a virtual reality game, but the son of the inventor of the game snaps and forces theses people to play a real life game with him only in virtual reality.. This son has some weird devices he can control in virtual reality to hunt down these people in actual reality. If you have ever seen the movie The Cube this movie is up to that level in quality. Basicly these people have to movie from level to level in the game.. With out giving out too much information and ruining the plot

Seriously!

Sometimes i just get the feeling that the whole movie industry is after my mental health. Someone could ask why? well the aswer is really simple > movies like SUBTERANO. When "wannabe" sci-fi flicks go bad this is a good sample what happens, totally lost script, bad acting, bad catch, bad cpu animations, bad sounds, and last, but not least bad atmosphere.

I do not recommend this movie nor will i ever say it is good, i will simply poke my eyes blind next time i even hear someone say "subterano", i mean HOW BAD CAN MOVIES GET REALLY?

Subterano (2003) is an Australian movie that I recently found on Tubi. The storyline follows eleven strangers who find themselves randomly in a car garage. They don't know how they got there but as they start investigating their surroundings they discover robots, creatures and people from the future that wants to kill them. Is there any hope for escape and getting back home?

This movie is written and directed by Esben Storm (Deadly) and stars Alex Dimitriades (Ghost Ship), Tasma Walton (Mystery Road), Alison Whyte (Satisfaction), Janet Edwards (Smokin Aces) and Jason Stojanovski (Beat).

This movie is wild and I couldn't tell if it was purposely trying to be a "so bad it's good" project or not. The action sequences are very uneven as are the kill scenes. There's a couple scenes that made me smile, but for the most part there's nothing special here. Some of the costumes and technology depictions were cool and the ID opening was hilarious. The aciting was very mediocre and the villain at the end was awful and entertaining at the same time.

Overall, this is a bad movie that I'd recommend skipping. I'd score this a 3/10.