Film Review - Underground (2023)

Before wedding preparations take absolute hold, a hyped up group of girl friends go wild out on the town, enjoying their own company without holding back antics that may be affecting others, including bodily fluids unleashed inside a late night taxi.

After a brief opening scene with authorities facing the media without answers to a previous incident, the rest of the film is past-tense.

In order to document everything as a pre-wedding video, one of the girls keeps the camera rolling and that is also what the viewer is experiencing; Found Footage.

Upon being dumped seemingly in the middle of nowhere by an irate taxi driver, the group of five stumble around in scrublands with only phone-torches to help navigate them in darkness.

During their drunken walking in isolation, one suddenly disappears underground with a thud falling through a hatch into a tunnel. Her friends follow her down bewildered but accessing the damage of a leg injury.

After the hatch above them bangs shut unable to be reopened, cue in-house arguments and anxiety kicking in.
Like any good found-footage thriller there’s lots of quivering, crying and screaming, more so as the alcohol wears off.

In contrast some of the group don’t take eerie noises in the background or reverberations in the walls seriously, until spiritual figures seemingly appear just out of sight and they embark upon a pentagram complete with lit candles.

Wet floors and grimy walls aside, the tunnels they find themselves in are part of British Isles, Guernsey folklore, a subterrain museum of sorts with Nazi paraphernalia and French prisoner history that comes to life in more ways than one. Wet floors, grimy walls have nothing on scary, life-like mannequins occasionally popping up.

Smart casting with an ensemble of fabulous, basically unknowns completely encapsulating the unpredictable situation with absolute believability. I have zero doubt Sapphire Brewer-Marchant, Maaike Tol, Charlotte Dawn Potter, Caitlyn Barber and Nadia Dawber, will all make further impressions in their future career after such dynamic performances here.

Originally based on his experimental short with the same title, director by Lars Janssen strings together an above average, weird found-footage escapade with touches of time-travel and war history combined into the paranormal premise.

The miniscule budget doesn’t matter, however, there is a couple of unexplained incidences, that maybe are just there to keep one thinking and alert. I liked it.