Subterranea

Deeply flawed. A deeply stupid and shallow story. Deeply insulting to the viewer. Deeply sorry for the kick-starters that invested. This film is slower than a snail stricken with rheumatoid arthritis trying to pull a cannonball up a steep hill covered in broken crystal. The preposterously unbelievable and naive story is enhanced by the appallingly naive make up, clichéd costume and awful acting - especially by John Turturro who has completely misread his character, but then the acting is the domain of the Director isn't it? I doubt that the director was actually paying attention to the performances and was instead spending most of his time looking at the pretty pictures - the videography was OK. I say videography because it was shot on Red video cameras (whatever happened to them?) The lead role, played by someone called Bug, was okay, but oh my goodness, everyone else was either miscast or just plain bad. If you really want to see this video at the cinema, take a sleeping bag and a good book.

The amazing ratings on IMDb. I will always wonder why such a great tool with amazing potential is never been managed better than it actually is now. This movie has two reviews before mine. One gave it a one star rating, the other a two star rating, but how amazing it is to see that this movie scores a 6,5 on IMDb. It's just not a fair or correct rating considering the reviews it got. But I still gave it a shot despise the reviews, and that purely based on the rating it got on IMDb. Because sometimes you stumble on a hidden gem. Unfortunately this one isn't a hidden gem. It's the complete opposite. I have to admit there was a certain mystery in the beginning, something that makes you wonder what happened and so on, but the more the movie advances the more you know this is going nowhere. The end is like I was afraid of at one point. A complete letdown. I have been fooled by the ratings, and I will probably be again in the future. If I could give one good advise to IMDb is that you make an option available where you can follow certain reviewers. So that I can watch movies that has been positively reviewed by people with the same taste of movies as me. Only then IMDb would be a great website. Now it's still just guessing if a movie is going to be good or not. Ratings don't mean anything on this website. There are hidden gems with a very low rating like there are awful movies with a high rating, like this one for example.

A man (Bug Hall) is raised since he was an orphan baby in an underground cell without seeing any other human or daylight. His only contact, for education and feeding, is with The Provider through an opening in the door of the cell. Twenty-five years later, he is released in a subway station having a scary experience seeing people and lights and hearing noises. He stumbles upon the homeless small-time criminal Remy (Nicholas Turturro) that teaches him how to survive in a wrong way. Out of the blue, he awakes in the house of a strange woman named Maya (Amber Rose Mason) that helps him and he falls in love with her. But when Maya vanishes, the man decides to find her whereabouts. But how can he do?

"Subterranea" is a film with an intriguing premise and an awful screenplay. The storyline of a wealthy sadistic lunatic that decides to raise a baby in a dark cell isolated from the society in a social experiment could have been better and better, like "Oldboy" (2003) or "Das Experiment" (2001) have been in the past. Unfortunately the messy non-linear screenplay is absolutely boring and the characters awfully developed. My vote is four.

Title (Brazil): "Subterrâneo" ("Underground")

'Subterranea' drew me into seeing it, with a cool poster/cover, an oddly interesting but very potentially silly premise and as someone with a general appreciation for horror. That it was low-budget, which from frequent personal experience is rarely a good sign due to that there are so many poor ones out there, made me though apprehensive as well as the low rating and poor reviews.

It is sadly however yet another film seen recently, hence some reiteration because the exact same strengths and flaws those films have are present here, that to me was incredibly disappointing considering its potential which it doesn't do anywhere near enough with. 'Subterranea' is an utter mess, with so many enormous problems. Hardly anything is good here and pretty much everything is wrong in a bad to appalling way.

Lets start with the couple of positives. The lighting is sometimes atmospheric and spooky. Bug Hall does his best and comes off the least badly, actually trying to have presence and trying to take it seriously.

Unfortunately, the lighting is not done justice by the rather direct to video schlocky way it's shot and edited and the drab colour palette, so much so it was hard to appreciate it, it was very clear that the film was made in a rush with no care or enthusiasm.

Going on further to the negatives, the story does feel paper thin, disjointed and over-stretched and some of it feels vague, under-explained in the last third where the film especially became duller, more predictable, more senseless and less scary. Too many characters are too sketchy, very shallow and with nowhere near enough to make one want to endear to them. Their annoying and illogical decision making and behaviours frustrates.

Making the film feel bland and forgettable with not enough heart put into The sound quality is obvious and utilised cheaply (being too loud in the build ups and people's reactions and dreadfully recorded), the music is needlessly melodramatic and it's best not mentioning the lumbering and histrionic acting that shows a huge indifference to the situation and what is going on as well veering into overwrought melodrama. Nicholas Tuturro's woefully misjudged performance comes off worst

Dialogue can be stilted and rambling, with lots of clichés, and no depth whatsoever, while the pace goes to a standstill very quickly and drags on forever with very little going on worth caring about and useless padding, never recovering. This wouldn't have mattered quite as much if the character development was present or engaging, instead nowhere near enough is learnt about the characters, and the few attempts to do so are neither interesting or illuminating, actually dragging things down. Found too many of the supposedly shocking moments not surprising or unsettling and the supposedly sense of dread dreary. Due to the excessive obviousness, a lot of dumb and vague moments and explanations when attempted, the excessive melodrama and the lack of tension and suspense. Would not have minded the lack of originality (the film is extremely derivative and in a dumbed and watered down way), if the story and atmosphere were at least alright in execution, in reality they were both very poorly done.

A lot of 'Subterranea' has a lot of undercooked moments lacking in any development or depyj and often nonsensical and confusing character motivations, while too many of the things to make you shocked are far from creative or nail-biting and are pretty tame and easily foreseeable straight off the bat. The ending didn't satisfy and instead came over as dumb and the whole thing felt like an over-stretched-to-beyond-breaking-point short film.

There is not enough threat, and what there is of it tends to be used poorly and so laughably done it doesn't frighten at all. The film is completely unimaginative and more odd than creepy, with ridiculousness and implausibility being taken to the maximum extremes. Everything here is neither creative, suspenseful or nail-biting. Some badly sagging momentum too. The direction is leaden and like their heart was not in it or ill at ease, with the chemistry between the characters and actors coming over as constantly random and shallow. Suspense and creativity are zero, just non-stop predictability, monotony and dullness.

Overall, really poor. 2/10 Bethany Cox

The premise is interesting enough, and the cover caught my eye. Plus it has some guy named Bug in it and I thought that was pretty funny.

But man oh man does this movie drag. I had to remind myself to pay attention to the screen and not be lulled into a catatonic state by the endless drone of vague and melodramatic dialogue. It reminded me of shopping with my mom as a child when she would run into someone she knew. You're trapped there, listening to two people ramble on and on, hoping against hope that this will wrap up soon so you can do literally anything else with your life.

The lead actor (Bug) does his best to pretend like he's in a real movie. All of the rest of the supporting cast is boring at best and embarrassing at worst. This might be the first movie in history to be directed by someone in a coma.

I can't say this movie wasted 90 minutes of my time. I did have a few laughs at some bad ADR audio, ill-conceived costume and makeup choices, and the soundtrack that insists--despite all evidence to the contrary--that something interesting is happening on the screen.

Not offensively bad but also devoid of any flavor-- this is the cinematic equivalent of eating wet tofu.