Format: Streaming video from Tubi TV on various players.
Found footage is a very specific type of film, and it’s one that I’m not always that happy to watch, all things considered. The Tunnel is an Australian found footage film that doubles as a pseudo-documentary. What this means is that while a large part of the film is shown to us as found footage, there’s also a considerable amount that is people in the found footage being interviewed. We’re going to go back and forth between the two things, and sometimes we’ll see the footage with voiceover explaining what is happening.
We’re going to get frequent reminders that The Tunnel is set up as a documentary, and nowhere is this going to be more the case than in the opening moments. We learn that during a serious drought in New South Wales, the local government has decided to recycle millions of liters of water currently trapped underground in abandoned train tunnels beneath Sydney. Millions of Australian dollars are earmarked for getting the water and purifying it for human use and then suddenly the plan to reclaim the water is no longer talked about and the government no longer talks about it. At the same time, there are reports that the homeless people in Sydney who are living in the tunnels are going missing.
For any enterprising journalist, this sounds like a story to be investigated, and reporter Natasha Warner (Bel Deliá) decides that it’s going to be her story. She takes a crew consisting of herself, producer Peter (Andy Rodoreda), cameraman Steve (Steve Davis), and soundman Jim “Tangles” Williams (Luke Arnold) into the tunnels below Sydney to see what they can find. And, because this is a horror movie, you know there’s going to be something down there.
And, of course, what is down there is going to be something that we never really get a good look at. The crew finds evidence of the homeless down in the tunnels and remnants of the World War II air raid shelters, but there are also some anomalies that they can’t really explain. In trying to get audio, Tangles is sure that someone is playing tricks on him, because he’s picking up sound that doesn’t seem to be coming from Natasha. In the room where they find a WWII air raid bell, Tangles again gets some strange readings, so decides to record them ringing the bell from outside the room. As he does, something happens; Peter, wearing the headphones, hears something disturbing, and suddenly Tangles is gone.
Where we go from here is going to be pretty predictable. Natasha, Steve, and Peter are going to get lost, catch glimpses of the thing that is obviously hunting them, and there’s going to be a lot of running. We’re going to also switch between camerawork that involves a regular light and green night vision mode, which is actually where we’re going to be most of the time.
The Tunnel has all of the problems of a typical found footage film. What, pray tell, are those problems as I see them? First, they tend to be too damn long most of the time. There’s a lot of time spent running in The Tunnel where all we can see is flailing and bricks as the characters tear around from place to place, camera swinging freely at the end of their arms. A lot of this is in night vision mode, too, so what we’re seeing is black and green walls flopping around while people yell about running faster. Aside from a moment or two, we never really get a good look at the thing in the tunnels, either, because why would we? It’s going to jump out at times, and it’s never going to be in a position where the camera is going to get a good look at it. Along the same lines, there are a few moments where the only way we are getting the shot we are is because the person holding the camera is somehow holding it out at arm’s length and filming themselves while in the middle of being attacked by the creature from the tunnel.
Ultimately, even if I keep most of the set up of the film as necessary to establish the characters and the situation, there’s probably 15-20 minutes that could be cut without losing any story or much tension, and this is from a movie that runs a touch over 90 minutes. Essentially, the second half of the movie—the meat of the actual scares—could be about half as long as it is without any loss of anything that works.
The other issue here is that found footage films tend to be predictable. There are certainly shades of The Blair Witch Project here, but there’s also a lot from other films, both found footage and not, that play on the same strings. You’ll see moments from [●REC], The Descent, and Creep if nothing else. And, because this genre/style is fairly incestuous, a lot of what happens here is going to be picked up in films like As Above, So Below.
The big issue, though, requires a spoiler tag, because it involves the end of the movie and one of the dumbest things I’ve seen in a film in recent years.
* * * OH NO! THE CREATURE IS COMING! * * *
At the end, Natasha, Steve, and Peter have crawled out of the tunnel, with Peter badly injured. Natasha screams at someone for a phone so they can call for help. She gets a phone and calls, and is completely incoherent, and eventually we find out that Peter dies of his injuries.
So why wouldn’t someone who is not emotionally invested make that call? When Natasha is screaming that she doesn’t know what train station she is in, why wouldn’t one of the people standing around her tell her? You can still have Peter die of his injuries without everyone acting like an idiot.
* * * THE CREATURE DISAPPEARS (AGAIN) * * *
The Tunnel is fine if you like the style. It’s not great if you like the style; it’s fine. If you don’t love found footage, only the interview portions are going to be interesting, and even then, only mildly so.
Why to watch The Tunnel: It mixes found footage with documentary.
Why not to watch: A lot of running, walls, and flailing night vision…exactly as expected.
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