Rio Hayward
All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.
Suman Roberson
It's a movie as timely as it is provocative and amazingly, for much of its running time, it is weirdly funny.
Nayan Gough
A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.
begob
A troop of British soldiers lost in battle seize an enemy trench, but their survival is threatened by its ghastly mysteries ...Good concept - basically the writer/director has converted the legend of The Marie Celeste to the killing fields of WWI, and let loose the psychology that we've built up around that conflict. Or you could think in terms of Dead Calm, maybe even Aliens or 2001. Gasp! From the opening battle sequence it's clear there was money behind this production, but it didn't carry the impact of the over-the-top finale to Blackadder, so I could have done without all the Boom-Boom-Boom in favour of just slipping into the claustrophobic trek through the mist.The star of the film is the trench - I got the sense of it as a deadly command centre turning its hostile attention inward. But the mythos of the story is confused, juggling the paranormal and the psychological, with a twist that is telegraphed early on and a conclusion that has it both ways.The performances are OK, but the actors have to struggle with cut 'n paste dialogue and characterisation, although the hero does come through well in the climax. I loved the rotting corpse gore. Music was ham-fisted, trying to distract from a lack of heart in the story.Overall: Great setting, but tangles itself in barbed wire.
Matt Kracht
The plot: During World War I, a group of English soldiers capture a German trench and begin to suspect that something evil is hiding among them.Michael J. Bassett's debut is a promising but murky film full of atmosphere and tension. Unfortunately, it lacks any clear plot, and what does make sense slowly begins to raise more questions in your mind the more you think about it. On my first viewing, I was really impressed with Bassett's ability to craft a mysterious and atmospheric haunted house film inside World War I trench warfare. On my second viewing, the pacing seemed a bit slow, and I was struck by a few plot holes. I think that people who enjoy moody, ambiguous supernatural mysteries will enjoy this greatly, but those who prefer a more straightforward tale that resolves all its questions will probably be unsatisfied. I took a point away from my score, which was originally an 8/10, as the second viewing convinced me that some of the deep and mysterious themes were actually the writer/director making it up as he went along. Nonetheless, I enjoy this film quite a bit, and I think it's a good example of a low budget independent film that makes the best of its budget.Bassett is a better director than he is writer, and I think the ending in particular was a bit unsatisfying. Although the twist is a bit obvious, it raises enough unanswered questions that you might spend more time debating its meaning than you actually spent watching the film. The morality is also a bit arbitrary, where seemingly innocent characters are punished for things beyond their control. If these sorts of things don't bother you, I encourage you to give this film a chance. It's a bit gory for a haunted house film, but it's better than many of the big budget horror sequels and remakes out there. Ironically, the writer/director would later make his own horror sequel (Silent Hill: Revelation 3D) that was rather lackluster and by-the-numbers.
defhead359
As a film for serious film watchers, the 5.9 score on IMDb does not do it justice. This undeserved low rating just shows me how many people should have chosen Jennifer's Body rather than Deathwatch when searching through the Horror section of their local or online movie rental store. WWI was characterized as a necessary war with meaningless casualties- countless bodies, muddy trenches, rats and insects everywhere- and this movie portrays these details to perfection. The only detail this film does not and cannot transfer over from the disasters of battle is the smell, yet the viewer can almost smell the rotting odors for the characters in the story. I judge a film overall by its cinematography, characters, setting, plot, and especially underlying themes. And this film's underlying themes are impeccably deep. So anyone who did not enjoy this film, or forgot it the moment the credits rolled, should stick to Hollywood and prime-time TV.Stranded in a deserted German purgatorial trench, a British squad is ordered to hold the area until reinforcements arrive. Upon finding the trench the soldiers find three Nazis, kill two and hold the remaining one soldiers captive. Every soldier is different in some way: one, a natural leader; the leader, a by-the-book soldier; another, a killer; a religious devout, a few normal soldiers, and finally a 16 year-old brown-nosed idealist. All are put to the test defending the trench, dealing with the POW Nazi, taking the orders of the capt, and maintaining their poise in a dismal situation. By the end of the film, the audience finds out how almost no soldier in war can sustain their moral integrity for long. Even the religious devout loses faith by the end. The film shows how most soldiers are committing to evil the moment they sign up for the military; how warfare is still a means of murder, though it may be for the patriotic cause of one's country; and how when under duress one must maintain their own path of morality and value to salvation, whether or not they survive or die.
celr
This film is very well done from the point of view of setting the scene. This squad of English soldiers are engaged in the awful trench warfare of WW1. They go over the top and are apparently mowed down by machine gun fire and exploding shells. Next we see them trudging over No Man's Land in the fog. At this point it's pretty certain that they're dead and in some kind of hell, or purgatory. Though masterful in setting the scene, the mythic underpinnings of the story are confused or non-existent. They come to a German trench which is full of corpses and a few live Germans. They kill the survivors except one, whom they imprison in an ammunition locker. But the trench itself seems to be attacking them. One by one they are being killed in horrible ways. Some by their buddies and some strangled by barbed wire that emerges from the mud. War is hell, but this is hell upon hell. The horror is unrelenting.Now war in the trenches is about as horrible as it gets. You really don't need supernatural effects to make it more horrible. Here the movie falls apart. It raises questions it can't answer. Why are these deceased soldiers being put through this additional hell after the hell of trench warfare? They behave as you might suppose any normal young men might under the circumstances, which is to become beasts. They're paranoid, they make bad decisions and they fight with each other. But what do you expect? In the end there is one English 'survivor' of the horror in the German trench. He's the only one who helped the surviving German and protested the madness of his fellows. In the end he's allowed to 'go free' for his humanity. Whatever that means. I suppose that means he can now go to Heaven while the others are condemned to repeat the hellish experience in the German trench for all Eternity. But since these young men have become beasts only because they've been subjected to the extreme dehumanizing experience of war, we can't feel they are really bad guys, they don't deserve this gruesome punishment. Well, maybe one of the guys is a real psychopath, but the others are victims of the horror of war.Ultimately this movie is a depressing downer. There is no payoff. Neither is it an anti-war movie because none of the issues surrounding WWI are brought up. If the movie makers just wanted to make us feel horrified and disgusted they could just have just shown war as it really is, there was no need for the supernatural bit. Horror movies should have some element of fun, or at least a sense of justice. Here there is neither fun nor justice. There is enough horror in the real world, a horror movie should have a point and this has none.
