DEATH TUNNEL (EL SANATORIO)

Just Death.

1928, Kentucky. A horrific disease known as “The White Plague” claimed over 63,000 lives. A monstrous sanatorium was built to isolate the infected and play host to bizarre experiments in desperation to find a cure. Unable to cope with the large amount of corpses, a five hundred foot underground tunnel was constructed for the removal of these bodies, hiding the enormous death toll from the rest of the outside world. This was called “The Death Tunnel”.

The above opening salvo from Death Tunnel and the stories doing the rounds about spooky stuff happening during filming, are significantly better than the actual film. All things are in place for a rollicking haunted building movie, a genuinely creepy location with a bleak history (The Waverly Hills Sanatorium in Louisville, Kentucky), a young and pretty cast lining up to be terrified and continuing stories of real hauntings in the vicinity. What transpires, sadly, is a desperately derivative picture made worse by a group of film makers who on this occasion are out of their depth.

The writing doesn’t give the characters any depth to begin with, and then they are thrust into the horrors of the sanatorium and we are supposed to invest in them. Tension is in short supply as the same old same old routine of the girls walking around scared quickly gets dull. The editing and intrusive camera work shows a rookie director (Philip Adrian Booth) let loose unsupervised, making his film seem more like an over extended rock video by some Death Metal band. There’s no pausing for breath, something which makes the haphazard structure of the plotting even more baffling. While of course screeching levels of volume are over used throughout as Booth and company crib from a number of other – and better – horror movies.

IMDb ratings are rarely a true measure of quality for films, especially with a diverse genre such as horror, yet Death Tunnel’s rating of 2.7/10 is very very appropriate. The brains trust behind this movie could have done no worse than learning from Brad Anderson’s superb Session 9. Philip Booth and his brother Chris clearly love horror, but their subsequent genre films will need restraint and thought in equal measure. 2/10

Amazing filmmaking

RELEASED IN 2005 and directed by Philip Adrian Booth, "Death Tunnel" is a well-made horror flick about five college gals (in lingerie) locked in a huge abandoned sanatorium in Kentucky where 63,000 people died of the "white plague" in the early 20th century. It's supposed to be a college initiation, but things go sour when the ghosts of the plague victims show up!

This movie successfully combines grisly locations & F/X with stunningly beautiful women and a kinetic editing style for an amazingly entertaining film. What's more, the ending is actually moving. It boggles the mind to think of the time & effort put into creating this film. Such attention to detail and professionalism is rare, particularly in low-budget independent fare.

Negative reviewers were no doubt turned off by the many flashbacks, flashforwards and flashbetweens in the first act, which confused them and turned them off. There's almost zero build-up of suspense due to the flashforwarding and the fact that the girls are shown whining in terror from their outset in the sanatorium. However, the story settles down in the second and third acts where it focuses on the five girls trying to get out of the sanatorium.

I suspect the director and his brother, Christopher Saint Booth with whom he wrote the script, took this non-linear approach in the first act to disorient the viewer right out of the gate. If so, it worked. But this is understandably oft-putting to most people on their initial viewing because the movie requires you to concentrate in order for it to pull you in. For such people, I suggest re-watching the film, kick back, and just let it give you a good time. The story comes together as you are ultimately captivated by the movie magic.

A more linear approach to the storytelling would've probably made "Death Tunnel" more compelling, but after re-watching the film it dawned on me that the Booth brothers were shooting for art and originality above horror conventions, which should be respected, which isn’t to say that there aren’t any obvious horror conventions in the movie. The fact that "Death Tunnel" is an artistic horror film rather than a conventional slasher flick explains the mass of negative reviews, but anyone who appreciates cinematic art should value this film.

You just have to be in the right mode and accept that this isn't a dialogue-driven, plot-driven movie that focuses on slowly building suspense. Instead, it's 90 minutes of horror and the entertaining elements thereof FROM THE GET-GO, which some people understandably can't appreciate.

The film was largely shot at Waverly Hills Sanatorium near Louisville, KY, which is a perfect location for a horror flick. As noted above, the film features numerous ultra-gorgeous women, particularly the ones trying in vain to get out of the sanatorium (e.g. Kristin Novak as Ashley, Melanie Lewis as Devon and Yolanda Pecoraro as Elizabeth). But there are even more, including a couple of the ghosts. The movie’s Grade A on this front. There's also a genuine aura of creepiness and a few good scares. Plus the modern metal song "Disconnected" by 9 Volt Revolt is excellent (featured in both the story and the end credits) counterbalanced by the haunting score by Christopher Saint Booth.

All of this gels together for a massively entertaining work of celluloid with the dynamic editing work particularly pulsating with creativity. Another reviewer related this kinetic editing style to Rob Zombie’s work in “House of 1000 Corpses” (2003), but that movie was a campy black comedy whereas “Death Tunnel” is serious horror. Besides, the innovative editing in “Death Tunnel” clearly ups the ante by comparison and is a marvel to behold.

The film runs 97 minutes.

GRADE: B+/A-