Set
during WW2, a group of German soldiers retreating from the advancing allied
forces, take refuge inside an anti-tank bunker. Believing themselves to be
surrounded, they decide to checkout the tunnels underneath to see what ammo
and supplies remain, and also to see if there's another exit.
However, when strange things start to happen at the post, they believe something is definitely not right. Strange banging's and noises can be heard both outside the bunker and in the tunnels below, but upon further investigation, no one appears to be there. The old soldier in charge of the bunker tells them that the tunnels behind the post were originally built during World War 1 as a munitions store, but work halted on them following a series of mysterious occurrences and unexplained deaths.
Whether or not the other soldiers believe his ghost stories, they soon come to the conclusion that someone or something is definitely down there. One soldier is mysteriously killed, another simply disappears and another starts to go insane. But efforts to unravel what's actually going on are hampered when the group starts splitting into different factions, forming behind either one of the two rival commanding officers in the group, or with the soldiers in charge of the post. Paranoia sets in, and fairly soon everyone is at each others throats.
Overall I thought this was a fairly entertaining ghost story. The film manages to convey a genuine feeling of creepiness and actually features quite a good cast, including Jason Flemyng, Andrew Tiernan, Jack Davenport and Charlie Boorman. However, I felt the films one major stumbling block was the fact that all the German soldiers are speaking with very strong English accents. I mean, in a lot of old war films you can suspend disbelief when you hear Germans speaking English, provided it's done with a German accent. But when they're sounding like a bunch of Cockneys, Brummies and Yorkshiremen, trying to believe these are meant to be German soldiers becomes a bit hard to swallow!
A great pity as this is otherwise a pretty good film. Makes an excellent companion piece with the similarly themed "Deathwatch" which, co-incidentally, came out in the same year.
