Underground (2023) Review
Underground (2023) Review
A group of girlfriends head off for a night of wild abandon to celebrate a final night of freedom as one of them prepares to walk down the aisle. But they soon get way more than they bargained for as the drinks, dancing and full-throttle celebrations become terribly twisted when a wrong turn finds them trapped underground and in their worst nightmare…
Directed by Lars Janssen and co-written and co- produced by Charlotte Dawn Potter, this brand-new British thriller is set for its UK digital debut on 26 February, courtesy of Miracle Media. Firstly, the good news! UNDERGROUND is set in Guernsey’s underground hospital, a tourist attraction that I have been keen to visit for a while. Janssen’s film afforded me the opportunity to have a jolly good look around the visitor attraction without the need to leave my living room here on the South Coast of England or any financial outlay.
And now for the not so good news. UNDERGROUND is yet another nail in the coffin for the over-saturated found-footage sub-genre. It is illogical, vague, rambling, overlong and lacking in any common sense.
Within the very same week that I reviewed UNDERGROUND I revisited another found-footage flick – THE BORDERLANDS – one that does everything right. The characters are credible, the story set-up makes sense and more importantly so does the placing of the cameras. UNDERGROUND fails on all these counts. The characters are annoying and lack depth and do little except run around, scream or bicker. It is difficult to warm to them as everything they do is so stupid. The set-up and construction of UNDERGROUND is contrived and ill-considered. Witness how the characters position their phones/cameras in a way that no one ever would simply because it might make for a nice shot. And do not get me started on the unnecessary camera jiggling for the final scene, that just would not happen in this media savvy age unless the person filming has an underlying medical condition.
UNDERGROUND is yet another found-footage flick that incorporates music in the finished product, I have never had an accompanying score when filming ANYTHING on my Android phone, perhaps there is an app that I am not privy to. Given that the characters use their phones throughout the whole film they all forget this when they finally do have the opportunity to make a call to emergency services and instead rely upon someone else to do what they could readily do themselves. The scares don’t work and feel tacked on, the climatic scenes, like the film itself, go on far too long and when you come to think about it, would you really lose your way around a tourist attraction when there’s bound to be ‘You Are Here’ maps adorning the walls around the place?
On UK digital 26 February from Miracle Media
