The Tunnel
(2011) 90 min.
Rated: Unrated (Slight gore.)
Country: Australia
Director: Carlo Ledesma
Stars: Bel Deliá, Andy Rodoreda, Steve Davis
Links: IMDB | Wikipedia
Rating: ★★★★☆
A plan to recycle water from underground train tunnels is mysteriously halted. A reporter and her group decide to investigate further.
Synopsis:
This film is shot in a documentary style, with found footage inter-cut with interviews with Natasha and Steven.
It’s 2007 and a water-starved Sydney is looking for ways to find more water. The New South Wales State government makes plans to recycle water found in old train tunnels. Then suddenly the government’s involvement goes cold and the plan isn’t spoken of publicly. There were concerns that there are homeless people in the tunnels but the government claims the tunnels are abandoned.
Natasha Warner is a reporter who wants to make sure the plan doesn’t die and plans to investigate the tunnels. She and her crew Peter (producer), Steven (Camera operator) and Tangles (Audio engineering) decide to investigate the story.
They first interview a homeless person named Trevor who is very distraught when Natasha asks him if he’s seen people disappear. This is when they decide to investigate the tunnels for themselves.
After being denied access to the tunnels by the government and by a guard, the crew find an unguarded maintenance entrance and go into the tunnels.
The enter the tunnels and hear the nearby stations. As they further explore they find the old air-raid shelters. They find a small area where a homeless person has lived and take some footage. Tangles hears a noise, but ignores it as Natasha and the others explore deeper.
While they are in a tunnel beneath the train station, Tangles keeps hearing a whispering noise on his sound equipment. After they shoot some footage, they go to a bell room. Tangles decides to record his sound from a room near the bell room so it doesn’t overpower his equipment. While he is in the other room, he leaves Steven to listen to his audio equipment. When Natasha rings the bell a third time, there is an odd noise and the boom mic cord snaps off from the recording device.
Tangles is gone and the rest of the crew at first try to look for him using the camera’s light. When they double back to retrieve their flashlights, they find that the equipment they left in the bell room is now missing. Peter tells Steven to make sure they stick together as Steve now has the only light source for the group.
As they look for Tangles they hear a shuffling noise in the distance and try to follow it. They enter a hidden room and find a chair and a wall splattered with blood. On the floor in the corner is Tangles’ flashlight. Peter picks it up and the group moves on in their search.
Natasha finds her camera which was left on the ground has moved. When she plays back the footage, it seems like someone picks up the camera, films the crew looking at the blood on the wall, and then leaves the camera on the ground as the rest of the crew approach.
Peter convinces the rest of the crew that they should leave. While inside the tunnels they find a guard wandering in the tunnels looking for them. They ask if he can help them and tell him that one of their crew is missing. Just as the man is telling them to follow him, something swoops past and carries him away.
They run away as quickly as they can. As they sit in the dark, Steven pans over a few scrawlings on the wall that read “R.I.P.” along with years and names. Peter asks Nat if their boss John knows that they are under the tunnels and she replies that he does not. Peter and Natasha fight for a while.
While they near the lake in the tunnel, they see the security guard. He has been blinded and sits in the water. A large pale figure grabs his head and snaps his neck. It hears the whimpering noises of Nat and her crew and starts to chase them for a bit.
The crew try to go through a smaller tunnel and Peter is pulled away by a creature but dropped. Steven deduces that the creature was scared by the light from his camera.
Again the crew wander around frantically, but then Nat discovers a small tunnel covered in boards. When they enter the room, there is a root-like growth covering the ceiling and a small pile of bloody eyeballs on the floor. It looks like a room where the creature lives.
The light on Steven’s camera goes out and just as he replaces the battery, a creature jumps on them. Nat runs off and the creature follows her for a while. When she is cornered in a room, it finally jumps at her.
The creature drags her to the lake and she screams. Soon Peter and Steven run to aid her and pull her out of the water. Steve and Natasha run further towards the safety of regular train tunnels. They hear Peter scream for them and they go back and pull him with them.
They drag his body to the station and use a train passenger’s phone to call for help, but Peter is already dead of internal bleeding. Steve and Nat are safe, but they live with regret from the events that transpired in the tunnels.
Review:
This film is another “found footage” film. And though I sometimes like found footage, this one is a bit weak. Perhaps so because of the documentary-style interviews. They are slightly jarring and, in my opinion, detract from the action happening during the film. There is a good amount of tense scenes in the film, but sometimes the interviews break it up.
I give kudos to this film for making a pretty decent film on such a tiny budget, though. What started out as a group-funded project ended up being a very competently made film. I do hope we can see more from these fine folk in the future.
Note:
This film is available to download via BitTorrent. BitTorrent Link. Stream this film for free on DeadHouse.TV. Please support this film by donations or buy the DVD version for a very affordable price.