Underground was the last film in a trilogy box set of horror DVDs I had purchased a long time ago. Directed by Rafael Eisenman (Red Shoe Diaries) and written by Charles Morris Jr. (Night of the Falling Stars), this indie version of The Descent may be inoffensive, but it also barely leaves a memory upon watching.
A group of friends attending a rave at an abandoned military base find themselves inadvertently trapped in an underground bunker after getting into an altercation with some bikers. With several of the friends being ex-military they realise that the only way to escape the bunker is to head to the other exit at the opposite side of it (the door they entered by gets irreversibly jammed shut). With the bunker in ruins, the path through it wouldn't be easy at the best of times, but unluckily for the group it is also home to a bunch of albino mutants who have murder on their minds.
Underground was a movie that I just could not focus on despite the high action that is going on. The prologue, in which a group of soldiers are comically overwhelmed by the mutants during a feeble attempt to retake the bunker some two years previously was a decent set-up, even if the intro title credits that followed looked very amateur. The initial rave was fun and over the top, but appeared to be there solely to get the protagonists into the bunker with a valid excuse. I thought it was a bit silly that the rave and everyone attending it vanishes between scenes, with just one throwaway line to try and give an excuse why that was the case.
If you have seen The Descent there isn't much to be surprised about here. Sure it isn't a cave system, but the heroes are still trapped below ground with a bunch of bald, white skinned mutants. Things barrel along at a lightning pace, the group of friends slowly getting taken out one by one. Along the way they discover old video entries that reveal just what happened to cause this situation.
A lot of the film is quite dark, the base is sparsely lit, though I never thought it was too murky that I couldn't see what is going on. The location itself had some nice set dressing to it and certainly looked the part. From rooms full of bones, to metal walkways and shallow pools of water dotted around the place, it came across as a labyrinthine structure. The special effects were also mostly fun, you get severed limbs (at one point someone is literally pulled apart by the monsters), insides pulled out, even a character whose eyes get forcibly removed. The darkness here sells these moments better than expected. I just couldn't care less about the characters however, there is some attempt to give them more than a blank personality, mainly going back to a harrowing story one of them tells from when they were in Iraq, but that was about it. The speed at which events move forward, and a certain level of genericness to what occurs meant I struggled to properly concentrate.
Underground is an average horror movie that felt exactly from the time period it was made. There are no real surprises to be found here, but on a positive note it didn't get boring. If you are after a braindead horror to casually breeze through then this might not be the worst choice, it is throwaway however so don't expect it to leave much of a lasting impression.
SCORE:
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