Urban Explorer

Berlin has many abandoned underground places. Kris leads two couples on a spooky tour. The three groups have never met each other before. Marie and Juna are friends. Lucia and Denis are a couple. They encounter dangerous men and dangerous situations.

This German English film is also known as Urban Explorer. This has a nice setup for a small indie horror. I'm ready to go on a tour, but problematic writing starts infiltrating the movie. As soon as the group gets confronted by the thugs, any sane person would leave the tour. Instead of thugs, the group should be trapped somehow underground. They should definitely stay together. That is probably the movie's biggest sin. It tries to build up some chemistry within the group and promptly breaks it apart. Maybe if they're not strangers, the separation would mean something. The movie falters and falls apart in the second half.

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.

My opinion on this movie is kind a selective. Good thing about it is superb directing, scary camera and very good acting. It is as good as in the best horror movies of that kind. So most of the conditions to make a good movie were fulfilled. Still, from my point of view movie is not good for its great downfalls. The greatest one is a pretty bad script full of holes. I am not going to go step by step in naming these holes as I don't wanna spoil your fun. Scenario is also very dry, there are some scary moments mostly due to the clever camera, but the plot is kind of sterile and uniformed. This is because the movie is not involving us on the basis of the clever plot composition, but on the separate scary events. I also found insisting on grouse effects pretty unnecessary. I love European horror movies and among them German very much, but this one looks more like a B class Hollywood movie pattern.

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.

Just the typical low iq friends who get chased by some psycho. Lot of reactions are just completely ridiculous, from the main characters but also from people around them. I guess it's fine if you're looking for a netflix and chill movie but want to focus on the chill part.