Category: 2010s

Urban Explorers (2011) review

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Director: Andy Fetscher

Starring: Nathalie Kelley, Nick Eversman, Klaus Stiglmeier, Max Riemelt

Also known as: Urbex: Urban Explorer

“Now, boy, let’s make you a genuine Mujahideen bride!” (Armin, Urban Explorers)

I know this is a film review site rather than a travel blog but take my advice anyway – if you ever go to Berlin, don’t pay a local €300 to take you on a tour of Germany’s forgotten complex of underground bunkers. This might be hard to believe but it turns out it’s actually not that safe.

Despite this, that’s exactly what four young tourists decide to do in Urban Explorers. Together with their tour guide Kris, they begin a tour of the abandoned labyrinthine passageways and tunnels lying in decay underneath modern Berlin. As you’d expect, this being a horror a film and all, things don’t go too well.

Hull city centre had seen better days

The odd thing about this film is it throws a lot of red herrings your way throughout. Be prepared to forget about a lot of things that occur in the first half of the film because, ultimately, they’re never seen or heard of again.

Take the scene early on where the group encounter a trio of nasty chaps with a vicious dog. After a tense encounter they leave, never to reappear. Same goes with the impressive story Kris tells the group about Hitler’s obsession with UFOs, and his desire to build an army of super soldiers, ideas that are given a lengthy monologue as if to suggest that’s what’ll be turning up later, but never do. And then there’s a pointless lesbian relationship that begins to form between two characters, shortly before they leave to get help after an “incident” and don’t return.  Continue reading “Urban Explorers (2011) review” →

The Shrine (2010) review

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Director: Jon Knautz

Starring: Cindy Sampson, Aaron Ashmore, Meghan Heffern

“There is no retribution.” (Carmen, The Shrine)

Top tip for any budding filmmakers out there – if you’re going to set a film in a foreign location, make sure you read up on it first. Otherwise you’ll end up like The Shrine, a film set in the fictional Polish village of Alvania. That’s Poland, as in the country that doesn’t use the letter V in its language. That said, cultural inaccuracies aside, The Shrine is a half-decent horror that starts slow but ultimately ends well.

It tells the story of Carmen, a journalist who’s investigating claims that some tourists are travelling to Europe and going missing, only for their bodies and luggage to turn up in separate European countries. Carmen uses one of the missing persons’ journal to discover that they were last seen in Alvania, so she heads there with her photographer boyfriend and Sara, her intern.

I wonder if you'd be offended watching this film if you were Polish

When they get there they find an odd, dense fog in one section of forest, inside which sits an evil-looking statue. After entering the fog and seeing some weird shit, Carmen and Sara decide it’s time to leave but before the trio can get out of Alvania they’re captured by the locals, who it turns out don’t take too kindly to people who stand in their creepy fog.

To say too much more about The Shrine would be spoiling it, so I won’t. One thing I will say though is that it takes a pretty long time to get going. Once the three are captured things pick up a little and a couple of particularly nasty, gory scenes set the tone (tip – if you’re squeamish about sharp things slicing your heels or poking your eyes, it might be best to look away).  Continue reading “The Shrine (2010) review” →

Chronicle (2012)

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Director: Josh Trank

Starring: Dane DeHaan, Alex Russell, Michael B Jordan

“There’s this thing, right, it’s called the apex predator. And basically what this is, is the strongest animal in the ecosystem, right? And as human beings, we’re considered the apex predator but only because smaller animals can’t feed on us because of weapons and stuff, right? A lion does not feel guilty when it kills a gazelle, right? You do not feel guilty when you squash a fly. And I think that means something.” (Andrew, Chronicle)

Andrew is not a cheery chappy. His mum is dying, his alcoholic dad beats him and he’s got no friends. His only solace is a video camera that he uses to film his life and document the various goings-on around him. In short, things could be going better.

The three leads work well together and are very convincing chums

One night at a party Andrew’s cousin Matt and Steve Montgomery – a popular kid running for school president – ask Andrew to come with them to film a huge hole they’ve found in the woods. While investigating the hole the trio fall in and end up in a cave, where they find a huge glowing structure. Some weird shit goes down and the camera glitches out and breaks, switching off.

We rejoin them a short while later after the three teens have somehow managed to leave the cave. Things are different though – they now have super powers. At first they’re able to simply move objects with their mind, but as they flex their telekinesis “muscles” and are able to move progressively larger objects, things get a little more serious and Andrew starts toying with the idea of using his powers to punish the society that shunned him.  Continue reading “Chronicle (2012)” →