The Bunker

Synopsis

French/German border - late 1944. The forests of the Ardennes. A platoon of battle-weary German soldiers, forced into confusion and retreat by advancing Allied forces, take refuge in an isolated Siegfried Line bunker. As night falls and a rainstorm begins to blow, the exhausted soldiers huddle in the concrete shelter - trapped by the advancing GI's.

A brief and violent assault upon the Bunker from the surrounding Americans is followed by a period of tense calm and, in the cold darkness of the bunker, the wise older soldier, MIRUS, mischievously relates to the others a story he'd heard from locals in the nearby village. The ancient surrounding forest, he reveals, is haunted; witches were burned here in the middle ages and, during the Black Death, the infected victims had been slaughtered and buried here, in an attempt to cleanse the village. At the same time, the newcomers also learn of adjoining tunnels, which connect the bunker to an abandoned underground munitions storage complex which might well be the only way out.

An eerie noir thriller in the classic tradition of Val Lewton's 'psychological horror' films of the 1940's, relying on character, mood and inference, rather than the contemporary trend of graphic violence - a chilling metaphorical tale which combines the best elements of Sam Peckinpah's Cross of Iron and Robert Wise's The Haunting.

Details

Year

2001

Type of film

Features

Running Time

93 mins

Format

35mm, Optical, Kodak

Director

Rob Green

Producer

Daniel Figuero

Editor

Richard Milward

Screenwriter

Clive Dawson

Director of Photography

John Pardue

Sound

John Hayes (Production Sound Recordist)

Music

Russell Currie

Principal Cast

Jason Flemyng, Jack Davenport, Christopher Fairbank, John Carlisle, Andrew Leepotts, Andrew Tiernan, Simon Kunz, Eddie Marsan, Charley Boorman

Genre

Production status

Complete

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Last updated 26th November 2005