Underground

It's your usual 'young people get trapped (this time underground) and have to fight for their lives against mutants' movie.

It's all very much in the Wrong Turn vein. You know, the cast are good looking. There are lots of pretty, short-skirted females screaming the place down. The guys run around all tough and are, funnily enough, the easiest slain.

But underground it's dark, and thus we're often faced with a too dark picture. Half the time I couldn't see what was going on.

The ending couldn't have come quick enough as I was becoming increasingly bored with this movie. It's 'b' rated stuff, nothing special.

4/10.

After a fight gets out of hand a group of friends run for cover but find themselves fighting for their lives against ravenous creatures lurking beneath their rave party.

Over dramatic, low budget horror flick that has some fantastic makeup and special effects in amongst the unnecessary fights,hammy dialogue and slow motion scenes.

Underground starts off very promising with the opening of an army squad fending off some nasty looking super genetic humanoids, then director Rafael Eisenman introduces us to an underground rave in an air hanger on a military base that goes on far too long. Writer Charles Morris Jr. borrows heavily from Marshall's Descent (2005) and Smith's Creep (2004).

Underground's weakest link is that it's not very tight and scenes are drawn out. It's well lit and shot with some good pumping tracks in the soundtrack.The score is a mixed bag there's some great music cues but then it borrows from familiar scores and overcooks them.

The young cast of actors including Eric Abercrombie and Mira Antonova do there best with the script. The Eli Wallach with a German accent lookalike aside - there's some nice touches, a creature bursting out of urinal, torn off ears, lobbed off arms, spooky tunnels and creepy corridors.

A lot of effort has clearly gone into Underground, it has a 'film' look and with some tighter editing it may have helped the viewing experience. Rafael Eisenman uses every film trick in the book and clearly has ability but it just isn't a polished enough production, nevertheless it's a lot bloodier, effective and atmospheric than the abundance of cheap looking horror DTV films.

Despite it's unevenness there's worst ways to burn a hour and a half.

Neil Marshall's THE DESCENT was a fine stab at a survival horror yarn, featuring some excellent locations (those dank and dismal caves were a perfect backdrop for the scares) and a race of nasty villains who seemed to be descended from Gollum. UNDERGROUND is a cheap and nasty American version of the above, with the setting swapped to an underground military bunker.

Unfortunately, UNDERGROUND has much in common with modern-day B-movies as it's the kind of film you watch and mildly enjoy in places, but soon forget about once the credits roll. The script and production values of this film are poor, with much of the running time consisting of too much repetitive wandering around in semi-darkness. Needless to say the characters are bland and undistinguished, with nobody to root for.

The monsters in the film are passable, and I enjoyed the couple of fight scenes that we get here and there (the choreography isn't too shabby). As with many B-movies, the gore content is ramped up to compensate for failings elsewhere, and there are a couple of great gags involving eyeball violence and a twist on the old "ripped in half" joke. Sadly, the film as a whole is just too dark and bland to be worth watching, though.

Typical horror/survival movie, a bunch of young folk trapped in an underground army base, facing zombie like creatures, with super human powers. This "Sitting Duck " cast is an attractive lot. But they are void of any real acting skills and the script is no help what so ever. Of course they wander through darkness, argue with one another and no horror movie would be complete without the "Hey! Lets Split Up" routine, that never works in any fright film. Now the good news is, the movie is made very well and there are some interesting moments and very professional camera work. So Underground turns out to be a cut above ground, give it a watch. It reminded me a bit of "Descent" only not half as good.

Some friends get into a nasty and potentially deadly fight at a rave, which just happens to be staged above a former US Military bunker. They escape into said bunker, which happens to be populated by a mad former WW2 Nazi scientist and his horrific mutant, killing machine mutants - or Trogs as he calls them. A previous attempt by Special Forces had failed to destroy these creatures, so what chance do our unarmed macho guys and hot chick girls have of survival? Well if you have nothing better to do and can can stomach 84 minutes of pretty weak acting, cheap effects, a dark, often shaky picture and complete unoriginality then Underground is what I call a once only view. There is plenty of action and it is pretty gory but the execution is far from good.