A group of women become trapped underground following the events of a bachelorette party gone wrong (someone puked in the taxi). Adrift in a subterranean bunker complex, the friends battle for survival as an ancient Nazi curse takes hold… if they can stop bickering first.
This found footage film by director Lars Janssen has an intriguing hook, even if it is one that has been done many times before (and never better than Neil Marshall’s The Descent). Unfortunately, it takes too long to get there and, once it does reach its destination, spends far too much of its time on drunken arguing between friends.
Even the found footage element adds little, being too clean and tidy for the story being told. Where the film works best is in its earliest interactions between the women and a chauvinist ass on the street and as they try on dresses in the film’s opening sequence. The rest feels either dragged out (a scene in a taxi keeps going long after they should have been kicked out for the first time) or incomplete. What few chills there are come second to scenes of the women sitting around grumbling or wandering around, also grumbling. Its central threat, meanwhile, goes underutilised and without proper definition.
Underground has its bright spots, but it’s a largely wasted opportunity which doesn’t take its ideas nearly far enough. As before, so again.
UNDERGROUND is available on digital platforms from February 26th.
