by Craig Thomas
The Tunnel is a 2011 film from Australia which purports to be a documentary about a news investigation gone horribly wrong. As the title suggests, it shares a number of similarities with another horror movie, called The Descent, in that they both involve people trapped underground with unidentified monsters.
This is basically another found footage horror film with ideas above its station. Whilst big ideas are laudable, you have to be able to pull them off, and that just doesn’t happen here. The biggest twist on the idea is that this is actually a documentary, made after the supposed events. This means there is lots of people talking to camera about what happened and whilst this is a nice idea, it commits the cardinal sin of being relentlessly dull. It also removes any tension regarding whether or not certain characters will die, as they clearly didn’t. Despite this being a work of fiction, the actors actually do a convincing job that they are recounting events, which is somewhat of a rarity in such movies. So you can get on board with the whole idea.
It is, in theory at least, an interesting concept. A similar technique was used to much better effect in the not very good Mila Jovovich alien abduction movie, The Fourth Kind.
The biggest problem with The Tunnel is that it is a really good idea, for a TV show. By which I mean, as a special at a length of 45 minutes to one hour, it had the potential to do something really good. However, with it being 90 minutes long, there just wasn’t enough material to sustain it, therefore there is a serious drag for the first half of the movie, most of which is superfluous. The first 30 minutes, a whole third of the film, could easily have been cut down to five minutes, without any loss whatsoever. It would seem the only reason it was all there to begin with was to take up time. After that, it takes another 15 minutes for anything interesting to happen. So straight away, we’re halfway through the film without anything of value or interest happening.
After that it does improve dramatically. The actual horror part of the film is pretty good. It builds and maintains the suspense and there are a good couple of jumpy bits. But by this point a lot of the audience’s goodwill has been spent so it needs to work really well to justify the first half of the film and unfortunately it doesn’t quite get there. If they had managed to extend the actual horror elements of the film, then it would have been significantly improved.
In its defense, it is not too surprising how little is actually shot in the tunnels, in what would appear to have been a fan-funded film. What they have done here is impressive and the last half outstrips many larger budget films. The problem is the rest of it doesn’t work.
Considering the budgetary constraints, everyone comes out looking good and if they had found a way to make more of it a horror, or made the non-horror bits in any way engaging they could have had a good little film on their hands. Unfortunately, what they’ve got now half a film and an interesting idea. Hopefully the people involved will be able to use this as a stepping stone to greater things, of which I am confident they are capable.
Grade: D
The Tunnel is available on Blu-ray and DVD.