Urban Explorer

The premise of this movie looked interesting. I never heard of "Urban Exploring" before. I am a small town guy. But in a country like Germany with its past, it make a lot of sense. Sadly this movie altough good in some aspect, didn't manage to be nearly as good as "As Above So Below" wich is set in Paris Catacombs and that i watched early this spooky season.

So first of all the movie takes so much time to start off. Yes suspense and story building is important, but i never felt it achieved either. The movie is well directed and the camera angles, lights etc are on point, and the acting felt very decent too, but i was just hoping that it would eventually start to be an horror movie.

It eventually does, but you understand quite fast what is going to happen and i felt its where it dropped the ball.

The main issue is how STUPID the characters are. Yes horror movies characters are often cliché and for a movie to work, you got to have these characters make a few "dumb decisions". But in this case its again and again and as many other reviewers said, i wanted to yell at my screen because of how dumb they were and i knew exactly what they should had done to avoid what happened.

Is the "torture porn" at least worth it? Not really. You got one solid scene for sure but thats it. The movie is mostly a thriller and a "cat and mouse" type of movie but again leading to the aspect that these characters were so insufferably dumb to me, that i couldn't care ultimately if they died or not.

In the end the movie bored me at times. Despite the short runtime i looked at the time remaining multiple times. That said i do feel a lot was very well done on a technical side of things so i am gonna bump it from a 4 to a 5 out of 10. It is also a German "indy movie" from my understanding, not an Hollywood production.

My version was dubbed in French and there was 0 German or other foreign languages. They all spoke in french so i had no need for subtitles or anything. French is my native language. The dubbing was surprisingly fine for a low budget horror movie.

I think this could have been an engaging flick. It has some good character development and an interesting premise. The acting is acceptable, and the filming/directing is solid. With that said, this movie does suffer an identity crisis – even the title shows the problems in the movie. The Depraved – Urban Explorer says it all. The movie is not really either, but a poor cross of both. This is not the traditional slasher, gore fest circa Hostel or Turistas. Nor is it an adventure film with Nazis and underworld crime, rather it is a blend that does not succeed in either genre.

The movie starts as a group of tourists is lead into an underground tunnel system under Berlin. There are plenty of interesting red herrings, and exciting action as they descend deeper and deeper under the city. This goes on successfully for nearly 2/3s of the movie, and I was engaged enough that I forgot that something 'depraved' was going to happen. It does, and when it does it is pretty lame.

The movie then turns into a cliché horror with all the classic conventions – girl getting tortured, cell phones dying at the right (wrong) time, the 'is he dead?' bad guy. However, there is nothing overly interesting or unique about the depraved or the situation. I kept wishing they would get back to the interesting tunnel system to explore.

As in all slasher movies, the ending is underwhelming, but by then I had pretty much tuned out. This movie could have been pretty entertaining, and starts off enjoyable, but can't decide what it wants to be. I would have been happy with just the Urban, keep the Depraved to yourself.

If all you want is a spooky movie with monsters and atmospheric settings, this is as good as any. If you expect anything like a logical story, well, maybe not so good. The film depends on a common misconception; every big city has endless tunnels beneath and they are all connected as well as lost and forgotten. And this is nonsense. Unlike Paris which has quarries beneath it, most cities do not have anything like a connected maze of tunnels. And most tunnels, even abandoned subway stations, are used for something and are well documented.

This film, like others of its type, substitutes basements or even abandoned factories with their windows covered for underground areas. One look at the brickwork of these phony tunnels is enough to reveal the sets are ordinary locations dressed as spooky tunnels. The huge size of many of the locations should tip off the viewer that they are seeing nothing more mysterious than an old warehouse.

And our explorers are totally unprepared for their adventure. The have no hardhats, no first aid kit, no proper clothing, nothing but a few dinky flashlights. If not for their "guide" somehow toting 5 sets of rubber waders in his tiny backpack they would never have made it through a flooded tunnel. We are further told that scrawny teens can climb 50 feet, hand over hand, on a thin rope. And thats up and down. Small wonder the actual climbing is not shown! And of course the abandoned tunnels are full of improbable characters who survive on.....what....rats? If you like to suspend your disbelief totally, you will probably enjoy this film. But if, like me, obvious plot holes spoil the experience you may wish you watched something else.

I had the chance to watch this movie at the Fantasia festival in Montreal and it blew me away. Urban Explorers biggest let down came in the introduction and story telling that up to a certain point it followed a bit too closely the usual scary movie blueprint down to the usual characters archetype (the cool guy, the wannabe hero, the scared girl, etc.).

I said up to a certain point because the movie really start to shine once the exploration truly begins. I was sucked in the gritty atmosphere created by the amazing locations Urban Explorer was filmed in enhance by the actors who manage to really make you feel uncomfortable.

All in all this movie is going into my library once released as a must see for fan of the genre.

A group of people take in an underground tour of the tunnels beneath Berlin. All is going relatively well until their fairly enigmatic guide suffers an unfortunate accident. If being lost in these deep, dark, endless maze of tunnels weren't bad enough, they also happen upon a deranged nut-case/former border guard.

I thought I was in for yet another low-budget, badly acted horror flick of little real value, but as the movie wore on, I found, much to my surprise, it to be fairly well done. Highly derivative, but well done nonetheless. I actually found myself caring if these characters survived or not, no small feat as most of these type of films have such one-dimensional cardboard characters that I usually can't be bothered. Which I guess is also true here to some extent, but I was drawn into the story regardless.