Underground (2024) by Lars Janssen

Director: Lars Janssen

Year: 2024

Country: United Kingdom

Alternate Titles: N/A

Genre: Supernatural

Plot:

Heading out for a night of festivities, a group of women on a bachelorette party for their friend head out for a night out on the city drinking and partying to celebrate, but when this leads to them being trapped in an underground Nazi bunker have to sort through their personal issues to get out alive.

Review:

This was a pretty difficult entry to get into. The opening exploits showing the group hanging out and having fun with their bridal party preparations, going dress shopping, meeting with the decorators, and just drinking or getting into arguments with each other that signal their bond and friendship with each other, is all decent enough in concept but it soon grows obnoxious and tiresome when they start to get progressively drunker and less interesting. When it leads to the bad decision-making skills that trap them underground in the particular bunker, it’s somewhat hard to get behind them due to the antics demonstrated here where it becomes somewhat hard to care for them after this type of build-up as the only reason they’re in the situation is due to their stupidity.

That doesn’t mean the film’s scenes in the underground bunker aren’t creepy or chilling, which is the case when they arrive inside the building. After the fall and the need to split up to find help, the groups’ intoxicated state of mind makes it easy to understand their plight at being lost in the bewildering series of maze-like corridors and tunnels inside the bunker. Unsure and unfamiliar with their surroundings already, this combines with the low light available to make for a rather fun time. The explorations that arise when they arrive and try to find a way out which results in a disappearance and the discovery that someone or something is down there with them is handled quite well adding a solid way to enhance the unease felt in the situation the longer they’re down there.

However, it soon becomes apparent that this is really all the film has going for it with the final half being a real mess where not a whole lot makes sense. The whole idea of the group wandering around the tunnels repeating the same conversations about the missing friend and why they need to move along, breaking down into pedantic arguments about the situation that show off how unlikeable they all are dropping their friendly nature to start turning on each other for what’s supposed to be dramatic effect at a time when it doesn’t need any extra conflict between the group who should be concentrated on getting out alive. There are also bizarre encounters that don’t make sense, from the soldier or other figures materializing to the unexplained occult rituals that are there mainly for scares but don’t mean much that all come together to leave this one underwhelming.

Overview: **.5/5

Offering up a few positive points but not much else, this is a disappointing effort that could’ve been much better than it is as the amount of negative points is more than enough to hold this down overall. Give it a shot if you’re intrigued by this one or if you’re a hardcore found-footage aficionado while most others out there should heed caution with this one.