Bunker 6

I watched this because it was rated 3 stars. I'm now thinking that the people that make these movies are the ones giving it the star rating.

It's really not a great show. Don't get me wrong, it's not like it's the worst show ever but it's your standard psychological thriller without any thrills at all.

The actors did a good job, the set itself is OK - it's the story that really sucks. It's also pretty derivative and you can probably guess the ending shortly after it starts...

What I really disliked was that almost all of the characters were truly rotten people. The kind you certainly wouldn't want to be in a bunker with.

I kept waiting for some kind of ending to make it all worthwhile, some redeeming feature - but none was to be had.

In the end, I started fast-forwarding to get to the end. I personally think the other reviews on this show have a vested interest. Fake news in other words.

It's 1962. The Cuban missile crisis spirals out of control and nuclear bombs are exchanged. Little Grace follows her military father and others to hide in a fallout shelter. An explosion knocks her out and separates her from her parents. Ten years later, she survives in Bunker 6 with dying father figure Lewis and four others. After Lewis' death, she is put in charge of maintaining the machinery and the keys to the outside. There is dissension over leaving the bunker.

This is a micro budget indie. The production is limited. The actors are fine. The script is sparse. Alice is too slight to be threatening. Maybe give her a gun. The arguments seem manufactured which is only explained by the twist ending. It never seems real. As for the twist ending, there are missing visual cues. The whole movie is missing bits and pieces. This is a great high concept for an indie but the execution is not quite up to standard. There are little things that make the main section feel wrong and even the twist is unable to recover the plot.

Bunker 6 is a brilliant Canadian low-budget (about £70,000) movie set in an alternate future. Shot in an actual nuclear fallout shelter in Nova Scotia, it tells the story of a small group of people living below ground after a nuclear strike in 1962 (the year of the Cuban Missile Crisis, when the cold war threatened to go hot). Although billed as science fiction, in many ways it is closer to a Gothic horror where the nuclear bunker substitutes for the country house.

The central character is Grace, who – in 1962 – is still a young girl living with her parents. Her father is a senior military figure, so when the bomb goes off they are all piling into the shelter. However, Grace's parents get caught in the blast before they can get through the entrance door. Several years later, Grace survives below ground with two men and two women, led by ruthless young Alice. Communications with the outside world and other bunkers have been lost. However, no one can leave until the red light above the strong metal door turns green. Grace regularly monitors the colour of this light. She also has engineering responsibilities, ensuring the the power keeps running in their subterranean prison.

But the problems of engineering are nothing compared to the challenge of simply staying sane, and we learn that an earlier inhabitant went crazy, killing his wife and then himself. Then, when one of their number is found dead the struggle for survival becomes even more intense. Should they remain in the bunker or should they risk going back into the outside world? However, if the external environment is still deadly then opening the blast doors will kill all of them, and so Alice will not allow anybody to leave.

There are assured performances from all concerned, especially Andrea Lee Norwood. I thought the initial set-up – Grace as a child and the beginning of war – was a little rushed, but beyond this Greg Jackson's script and direction builds the tension effectively. The use of a real nuclear bunker gives the whole thing a genuinely claustrophobic atmosphere.

I thoroughly enjoyed this film. Some of the characters in the film appeared weak and unbelievable, in the beginning. But, if you hang on and wait for that plot twist at the end you will find that it all ties together nicely, and makes a lot more sense. I thought the acting was done well enough and was mostly believable. All in all it is a fun idea on a dystopian past created by the Cuban Missile Crisis, had that nuclear event actually taken place. It is Twist on history much like Tarantino has been known to do in some of his movies. This little movie was great fun.

What a strange film this is.

Are we in post insanity where Grace has been living alone for a long time after everyone died, I suppose of having been murdered by her?

Nothing is clear in this apocalyptic film. At times we can believe she is having flashbacks of what happened in the past to wake up in her reality that everything in the bunker is collapsing.

One moment she tries to contact the outside world then later on the communication room is in pieces with wires hanging here and there in a way to show that the bunker is degrading.

Again, nothing is clear to how insane she has become. Seems that two worlds are colliding in the bunker. The past which seems to have been livable and then a shift to what in the world is going on in the bunker!

When the green light finally turns on, she puts a key and is taken outside the bunker with some snow left to represent the nuclear winter coming to an end. Yet, the trees in the background have grown relatively fast. Especially after a nuclear bomb has detonated. How far from the bunker did it happen?

Was she inside the bunker for too long a time that led her to insanity? I would imagine yes because of the trees. In addition could there have been a defect with the light?

I'd like to see a sequel to this somehow good Canadian Sci-Filow budget film.

I liked the movie and give it a 7/10.