The Bunker (2001)

Controversy, that's what the reviewers made of this movie. And for me I had my doubts what to think about it. There is almost no blood in it or gore. Can't really say that it was a horror flick nor a war flick. It takes place in World War II in Belgium, there are some fight scene's, but due low budget you don't see the enemy. searching for a place to hide they see a bunker. The two men in the bunker are telling them about the stories surrounding the bunker and not to go into some places. Each time you think, well, no we are going to see the monster they go into discussion. Still, it kept me watching wanting to know what really is wrong with the bunker. The plot is for me still not an answer to my questions. It did remind me of Sauna, also one i didn't really understood. So it's time for you to dig yourself into the bunker to see if you get it

We are on the German/Belgian border in 1944 and a group of German soldiers are holed up in a bunker trying to survive. But just as they find a tunnel system underneath the bunker, and the enemies outside are closing in, they suspect that something very sinister is down there with them......One of the most frustrating British films I have watched in a very long time. You see there is a real great movie at its core, one that is desperately trying to get out, but instead of a top notch eerie thriller we get something that looks like a chopped together homage to John Carpenter. Definite shades of Carpenter's chiller, The Fog, and Russell Currie's great and creepy score sounding suspiciously like a reworking of Morricone's scoring for The Thing. The production is not helped by using an array of non German actors for this German soldier based picture. Much as i like Jason Flemying and Christopher Fairbank {my reasons for watching this film}, it's a bit of a stretch to accept them as German soldiers.With a better director than Rob Green at the helm, Clive Dawson's story could have been fully realised as a serious and dramatic horror film. Instead the end product comes off as something that was too big a task to handle, and sadly the nicely tuned atmosphere is lost amongst the insipid and unimaginative cop out that the film invariably is. 3/10

During WWII, a small group of German soldiers retreating from advancing Allied forces seek refuge in a tank bunker that's only manned by loony old man and a young kid who are low on ammunition. The Americans surround the bunker and the men inside wait for the onslaught. Soon they learn of an underground labyrinthine of tunnels, which could used to escape, but there's something not right about it. The old man tells stories that these tunnels are haunted, but the men believe that the Americans have found there way in.Disappointing… yeah this sneeringly bleak psychological hybrid that cross war with the supernatural ("The Keep" did it better) is for most part a real blurry and flatly handled project. The murky idea behind it isn't bad and there's a potent slickness to the film, but it's hard to shake that sense that it could have been far more to it and that it doesn't really lift itself for the occasion. It just sits there for too long and when it tries to hit its stride. It never takes off and ends in pretty much a fizzle. After making us wait, there are too little surprises and thrills conjured up. Two or three nightmarish images are just not enough. Rob Green (debut as director) elaborately paces the film slowly to milk the taut situation and he crafts a drably paranoid atmosphere that reeks of shadowy menace. It's too bad he had to fall into some predictable jump scares and uninspired clichés of haunted themes. Russell Currie pips in with an eerily shuddery music score and John Pardue's polished photography captures the saturated fixtures with precise detail. The editing by Richard Milward has that uncanny firework movement about it and surprisingly some of those dreary flashbacks are chillingly displayed.Subtleness is the key, but maybe it was just too implied and clever for its own good with its preachy mannerisms. Especially since I found the delusional characters hard to tell apart and to feel for them. No real connection is really made towards them. And the whole ambiguous touch of this unseen foe never fills that fulfilling when the answers come. For me it didn't entirely click and made it even more baffling and frustrating. More so it looks at the horrors of war and the haunting nature that it has on the serving soldiers. The script that's served up is severely lacking any sort of conviction and filled with flimsy dialogues. The cast on hand are more than capable; Jason Flemying, Andrew Tiernan, Christopher Fairbank and Jack Davenport. Instead what they have to work off is rather weakly drawn up.I'm rather unsure about this low-budget effort. It's looks very good, but the story's shifty progression confounds the overall outcome.

When I opted to watch this movie, I honestly expected (hoped for) just a good war movie. I did not get what I hoped for I got more. I, like many of my fellow contributors am a history buff and I too noted a few errors with the uniforms. However, though not a true expert like some here, I know that as late as 1944, things weren't going well for the Germans and they did have to improvise from time to time. Desperation is just as much a mother of invention as necessity.With that said, I wish to comment on the substance of the movie itself as I feel it's the more important issue.A quick plot summary; It's 1944 on the Western Front and a group of German soldiers escape an ambush in the Ardennes Forest only to take refuge in a bunker on the Siegfried Line. They know the Americans are out there and very much out number them, but they cannot see them. They are ordered to hold out and assist the bunkers remaining defenders, a teenage boy and scruffy old World War One veteran who has been called back to service. The kid is impressionable and has not experienced war yet, the old man has and being a local native, also knows some of the areas grizzly past which he shares with his new comrades. As time passes and things get more desperate the unit begins to face terrors they did not expect.I just watched it last night for the first time. I was spellbound. This terrific little film is not a monster movie per se. It's a psychological thriller were the monsters are not 'out there' but inside each man. For some it's the loss of a comrade or relative. For some, it's guilt. For some it's the need to prove themselves and drugs take their toll on one man as well.This is not a movie for those who enjoy cheesy slasher flix. Sure, they can be entertaining, but this is a movie that makes you think. You see these men who, if they truly are in an elite unit have nothing to prove, unravel under the worst of circumstances. Towards the end, even those who "held on" mentally still come face to face with the demons in their minds as they struggle to survive.I would not only recommend this to anyone who really loves a good horror movie, but would seriously suggest it for viewing in a psychology course.