Macabre…ish Horror Review: Deep Fear
Deep Fear, 2022/ 1 hr 20 min
Four friends who have graduated and heading to the Army soon, have their last hurrahs and one night, they decide to do something more interesting than their usual clubbing…they’re going adventuring in the catacombs. Max has all of the phobias that you don’t want to have if you’re adventuring at night, squeezing through tiny openings and fear vermin, but he’s going anyway.
Inside, after traversing the pathways. They accidentally wander into what seems to be an ambush and are ordered to turn around. It turns out to be a joke, it’s a tag party and everyone’s invited! The group talk about an unexplored area that they want to check out. Noting the danger, the original group plus a few more from the party, go in search of the location.
It’s a huge cavern, they enter and share stories and unfortunately find other people and they are not friendly, they’re skinheads. As a matter of fact, Sonia (Sonia Lesaffre) had a nightmare involving these same people, the night before. They are assaulted, so Sonia pulls out a gun and shoots one of them.
The group of friends take off to find their way out. They are lost but Ramy (Joseph Olivennes) runs into another explorer friend who points to a way out, it’s another tiny opening they have to squeeze through and it goes right under the train. They’re all over this whole excursion but they crawl through. At the other end, it’s not an exit, it’s another, newer passageway but this one is booby trapped. Henry steps on a bear trap and they see a tag and a bag they recognize, they’re Spone’s (Yohan Barrenechea). They decide to drag Henry (Victor Meutelet) back through the passage they came through but the train, above them, the already tight passage cave’s in on Dante (Olivier Bony).
Nothing left to do but search for another way out and for Lamia (Léone François-Janssens), who ran off with Spone’s bag. During their search they find a trip wire and while they avoid it, they hear some very weird sounds behind them.
While everyone tries to regroup, they notice a sign in German and swaztikas, Max (Kassim Meesters) thinks they’re in a bunker. It’s not long before they find someone’s living area. Someone’s current living area. The lights are on, there are flags and other paraphernalia around. Then they find Lamia, she’s badly injured and appears to be walking around in shock and she’s bloody and missing body parts. Suddenly something lunges at her and Max slams the door between them and Lamia and whatever beast is attacking her.
In a room, off of the living quarters, they find essentially, an abattoir with a lab in it. Every surface is covered in blood, human body parts hang from the ceiling, there are piles of bones and rats are everywhere. And from the corridor they can hear the beast running again and it’s heading toward them. They take off and just as Henry closes the gate between them and it, it grabs his leg and tears his foot off. But behind them, another creature arrives. And in the distance they can hear a whistle and the creature turns and runs toward it. It’s being summoned.
After hashing is out, Sonia and Ramy, decide Henry’a best chance at survival is leaving him and going for help. As Henry rests in the cot in the living area, everyone else, goes to find help. But unfortunately, someone is following them, once again but this time it appears to be a man and he’s wearing a nazi uniform. He quickly closes the distance between them as Ramy trips the wire. This guy is impossibly strong, has white eyes and grey skin. He lifts Max by his neck and punches through his abdomen.
Sonia flees and somehow gets back to the location of the tag party but everyone who stayed, is now dead. Running through the cavern, once again she runs into the skinheads and the nazi is not far behind. They spot the man behind her and his uniform and throw up their salutes as Sonia takes off and the nazi gleefully tears them to pieces.
Sonia finds sunlight again but it’s 20 feet above her head and she has to climb to the grate above. The nazi closes in on her and she has to fight for her life.
This film is also known as Bunker 717, it is a French film directed by Grégory Beghin and it is a solid under ground horror. It’s paced pretty well and there are a lot of different kills in this movie…traps, creature, nazi…they aren’t too graphic though.