Main Cast: Jason Flemyng, Charley Boorman, Jack Davenport, Andrew Lee Potts, Christopher Fairbank
Release Year: 2001
Country: UK
Run Time: 91 minutes
MPAA Rating: R
Plot
Rob Green makes his feature debut with this moody horror flick about war, paranoia, and unspeakable evil. As the Allies close in around the Nazis, pounding them with relentless air strikes, a band of Germans takes refuge from the onslaught in a concrete bunker deep in the Black Forest. Long-forgotten tunnels extend from the bunker, further into the wilderness. Shell-shocked and exhausted, the survivors argue about provisions and strategies during a lull in fighting. As they slip into sleep, the horrors, murders, and plagues that rocked Europe for centuries seep into their souls. When the next wave of attacks threatens to blow them to smithereens, the war-weary group ventures deeper and deeper into the tunnels as they combat fear and insanity. Jason Flemyng, Charley Boorman, and Andrew Lee Potts star in this film which was screened at the 2001 Toronto Film Festival. ~ Jonathan Crow, All Movie Guide
Review
The Bunker is an admirable horror outing that comes close to delivering the shocks, but ends up on the drab side of things when all is said and done. Released almost in tandem with another horrific war feature, Deathwatch, this film is bound to be confused with the latter trench-filled shocker, though, to be fair, The Bunker has its own thing going for it. For one, the interesting premise leaves room for the filmmakers to play with their audience's claustrophobia and fear of the dark, while the cast they've assembled is adept and capable of carrying a mid-low-budget yarn like this. Unfortunately, the story is a little too jumbled for the viewer to truly wrap his or her brain around, with plot points laid out but never revisited or truly explained. It also does not help that the film hinges on a confounding payoff that's so loaded with style and so vague in its meaning that those who have stuck with the movie will have a knee-jerk "What the...?" attitude as soon as the credits roll. In its defense, John Pardue's stark cinematography is a high point, while Jason Flemyng and the rest of the cast sell each moment as best they can. Slightly spooky, but missing the under-the-skin feel that it needs, The Bunker is unique in its setup, but little else. ~ Jeremy Wheeler, All Movie Guide
Rob Green - Director, Richard Milward - Editor, Russell Currie - Composer (Music Score), John Pardue - Cinematographer, Daniel Figuero - Producer, Clive Dawson - Screenwriter
During the last weeks of World War II, several German soldiers take refuge in a reinforced bunker after being pushed back by American troops on the Belgian-German border. The bunker is one of the German Armies last line of defence - The Siegfried Line, and has only two soldiers left to man it, all the others having been sent to attack the Allies. Soon after they arrive they run low on ammunition and decide they must get more and also find a means of escaping. The elderly Private Mirus, who was a member of the bunker's original garrison, tells the group stories about the tunnels and how they are supposedly haunted by the plague victims who were murdered in the area hundreds of years before. Along with Mirus is the teenage Private Neumann, a Hitler Youth who looks on the newly arrived soldiers as heroes.
Deciding it best to stay put, the group takes shifts manning the machine gun position and keeping lookout for enemy soldiers. While off his shift, Mirus sneaks off into the tunnels; curious, one of the other soldiers follows him without his knowledge. Back in the bunker it's shift change and the soldiers come to get the others discovering they are not there and have wandered into the tunnels. The group suspects them of deserting and follows them into the tunnels to capture them.
Trivia: The Harmonica tune coming from the forest (supposedly played by an American soldier) is "Man with a harmonica" by Ennio Morricone originally written for the 1968 film Once upon a time in the west.
