Hey, what do you know? Just about at the time that you get totally beaten down by godawful Z grade horror movie after godawful Z grade horror movie, along comes a super low budget little flick like this to show how it is done. Not much happens, the entire film is shot in greys and in a very limited and very visually unexciting locale. But there was a lot to like about this attempt.
I think much of the credit has to go to the script writer and director in this one, who make the most out of the little they have on hand. They stress atmosphere, sharply drawn characters, and then, in an almost unprecedented development in low grade horror, people who actually act in smart and logical fashion. The squad of soldiers in this one really moves and acts like a squad of soldiers. There is a reason for them to be where they are. There is a reason they are trapped. They take cover, lay claymores, worry about high ground and suppressing fire, pair off in twos to search, and in general never give you any reason to question whether they are actors rather than military men. That is INDCREDIBLY refreshing, and adds a remarkable degree of believability to the whole exercise, in much the way that the marines in Aliens (obviously a vastly superior movie) acted like actual soldiers and made you believe it. And in the same vein, all of the characters here have solid, believable dialogue and react in believable fashion when put under stress. The acting is solid, nobody is flat, there are no stupid joke characters, few cheap scares. The whole thing is just very intelligently done.
Now of course in the end, its still Grade Z horror. They have almost no budget, not much goes on, the premise is both clichéd and shaky, and most problematically the intelligence shown toward the characters is not duplicated in the highly erratic depiction of their opponents (the rules change every time they meet for no apparent reason). But it is the sophistication of the overall attempt here that lets me give this one a solid ranking. They had little to work with, but they actually made a real effort to turn out a quality product here. That deserves something, and in the future it would be nice to see these same people involved in a project with more ambition and money behind it.
I think much of the credit has to go to the script writer and director in this one, who make the most out of the little they have on hand. They stress atmosphere, sharply drawn characters, and then, in an almost unprecedented development in low grade horror, people who actually act in smart and logical fashion. The squad of soldiers in this one really moves and acts like a squad of soldiers. There is a reason for them to be where they are. There is a reason they are trapped. They take cover, lay claymores, worry about high ground and suppressing fire, pair off in twos to search, and in general never give you any reason to question whether they are actors rather than military men. That is INDCREDIBLY refreshing, and adds a remarkable degree of believability to the whole exercise, in much the way that the marines in Aliens (obviously a vastly superior movie) acted like actual soldiers and made you believe it. And in the same vein, all of the characters here have solid, believable dialogue and react in believable fashion when put under stress. The acting is solid, nobody is flat, there are no stupid joke characters, few cheap scares. The whole thing is just very intelligently done.
Now of course in the end, its still Grade Z horror. They have almost no budget, not much goes on, the premise is both clichéd and shaky, and most problematically the intelligence shown toward the characters is not duplicated in the highly erratic depiction of their opponents (the rules change every time they meet for no apparent reason). But it is the sophistication of the overall attempt here that lets me give this one a solid ranking. They had little to work with, but they actually made a real effort to turn out a quality product here. That deserves something, and in the future it would be nice to see these same people involved in a project with more ambition and money behind it.