DEATH TUNNEL (2005)

As part of some kind of college initiation, five hot young ladies are to spend five hours in a haunted asylum with five floors, and no one (or at least the audience) is surprised when the asylum’s ghostly inhabitants (apparently victims of a plague) start acting up. Or is something else going on? No, really, tell me because I have absolutely no idea. I honestly had to read other reviews of this low-budget indie flick to know just what the hell it is about. The story is actually really simple (combine the remakes of Thir13en Ghosts and House on Haunted Hill and you’re halfway there), it’s just that the director has chosen to tell this story in the most obscure, and often downright incoherent manner possible.
Keeping the audience in the dark for a bit is one thing, but after a while, if you don’t fill them in, you’re either going to irritate the hell out of them, or bore them to tears. I felt both emotions by the bucket-load as the filmmaker continually refused to connect the two story strands (it’s told out of sequence) before my head was going to explode in anger. Add to this, a bunch of characters that deserved no sympathy nor interest the audience in the slightest…well, let’s just say that this film was a helluva tough slog for me. I haven’t been this frustrated or bored since Barry Watson stared at a doorknob for the twentieth time in Boogeyman.

The performances? Forget ‘em, I’m pretty sure the cast forgot to give ‘em anyway. So what you end up with is a poorly made House on Haunted Hill
rip-off (a remake rip-off, no less!), populated by Friday the 13th characters (or as I call them ‘Walking Corpses’). And what a waste of such pretty girls! Oh, sure the film does earn points for the most gratuitous (and out-of-place) shower scene in cinematic history (God bless you Ms. Novak, even if you did fail to show all three B’s), but then goes and spoils it by bringing in the gore too quickly. I hate it when that happens. And as for terror? The only way Mr. Booth was able to ensure his audience would jump in their seats was by making the dialogue so goddamn unintelligible that you have to turn the volume up super-loud just to hear it. Not that we’re in Arthur Miller or Ernest Hemingway territory here. Hell, Green Eggs and Ham is a more profound piece of writing and the menu at McDonalds is more involving and insightful. I don’t normally get this nasty towards a low-budget film from people who probably worked very hard, but I had just plain had it with this one. And let’s face it, I’m really only witty when I’m in nasty critic mode. Nice guy Ryan’s a boring old fart.
On the plus side (yes, there actually is one!), the writer-director (co-written by Christopher Saint Booth) may have no idea how to write an effective horror film and certainly no idea how to edit one, but Booth sure can shoot one. This is certainly one good-looking low-budget film, that makes pretty good use of its creepy set (though the ‘true story’ tag seems about as plausible as The Amityville Horror). Such a shame then, that the whole damn thing is empty inside. Oh, and kudos for the out-of-nowhere goofy chase scene set to music that can only be described as Scooby Doo meets Nine Inch Nails. That scene gave me the biggest laugh I’ve had in ages.

Overall, this is a pretty pathetic film that might’ve worked for some people if it had a clearer narrative, and had it been populated by personalities instead of dead meat. Hell, even caricatures would have sufficed. Unfortunately, what we have is a film unlikely to appeal to anyone with an attention span more than that of a one-year old. Oh, and a message to the editor on this film (incidentally, the director himself); Switch to decaf, buddy!