FOR DYING OUT LOUD 666

WEIRD WAR WON



DEATHWATCH (2002)
Jamie Bell, Laurence Fox, Andy Serkis, Matthew Rhys, Kris Marshall, Torben Liebrecht, Hugh O'Connor, Hugo Speer
Directed by Michael J. Bassett
A battalion of weary British soldiers from Y Company fighting in France have charged the Germans in a brutal night assault of shellfire with dozens of their numbers cut down by machineguns and what initially is thought to be mustard gas. In the foggy morning, a remaining squad of Brits separated from their regiment, stumble upon a huge intricate web of abandoned German trenches, where they encounter a small group of enemy combatants huddled petrified as if focused on a threat from elsewhere. Pvt/McNess shouts for their surrender with sadistic Pvt/Quinn unmercifully shooting one and about to shoot another before he is stopped by McNess which allows the second German to escape down the sprawling maze complex. A third German named Friedrich surrenders, as the Brits set about securing & holding their defensive position in belief they have pushed through enemy lines and may face a counterattack. The men are antsy from sitting tight waiting for reinforcements and after use of a captured radio to contact their HQ proves fruitless, their exploration of the trench network unravels something sinister having taken place as rotting corpses entangled in barbed wire, and bayonets scattered all over the ground are found indicating possible friendly fire. After detonating explosive charges to seal off some passageways, an unholy growl is heard with the group failing to notice large pools of blood oozing out of the mud and seeping out of walls. Alongside the discovery of a German body, Pvt/Hawkstone finds the second German who had escaped but shoots him after calling for help resulting in a fistfight from the German having come at him with a weapon. The German is first wounded but Pvt/Starinksi arrives shooting him again and when the enemy falls to his knees, Quinn jeers at him and mercilessly executes him with a bullet to the head. On edge and fearful of their surroundings, the Brits take their frustration out on Friedrich. Neither scared Pvt/Shakespeare (the squad youngster who at 16 lied to Army enlistment) mistreats the German as he is disgusted by the behavior of his mates, nor does injured Pvt/Chevasse partake in the abuse as he is layed up on a stretcher from spinal paralyzation. That night, Starinski who is away from the others (and masturbating to looted nude photographs), hears unusual voices leading him to delve further in the twisted trench tunnels where he finds 3 German bodies meshed in barbed wire. As he shouts to the others, he is ambushed by one of the cadavers coming to life.

Shakespeare reaches him to find his fellow soldier battered to a wall also wrapped in barbed wire. Convinced more Germans are hiding about, Friedrich is interrogated who speaks in French telling the Brits that evil is lurking and as unlucky interlopers they will all die. Their commanding officer, uptight meticulous Capt/Jennings (who doesn't inspire confidence in his men), hears the clear sounds of battle even though all combat has ceased, and wanders into the center of the trench where the squad have piled all the dead Germans into a putrid heap. Feeling he was being snuck up on by a German, a nervous & jumpy Jennings mistakenly shoots Hawkstone causing the squad to believe the Germans are active. Although the men rig boobytraps and cave-in more sections of the trench with explosives, noises continue to be heard the next night which plummets the squad's poor morale even lower and worsens their conduct -- most notably in Quinn who has snapped into murderous madness. When McNess is chased by a ghostly red mist and showered in blood, he flees terrified into muddy No Man's Land (the area of open ground between opposing armies) and is shot in the leg by biblethumping chaplain Pvt/Bradford to stop him deserting. As the squad move to retrieve him, a crawling McNess is dragged underground by a moving lump of mud. Bradford in a schizoid panic tells Shakespeare that the trenches are possessed and that death has come for him. In order to prevent himself from killing the squad, he begs Shakespeare to shoot him and runs off when the request is refused. In the morning, cruel Quinn drags Friedrich out into No Man's Land where he crucifies the German and viciously beats him with a spiked club while yelling daringly for any Germans to save their comrade. A delusional Jennings hears the screaming enemy and heads towards the commotion where totally ignoring the torture, he bizarrely demands Quinn fall in for inspection. Batshit Quinn instead forces Jennings to his knees and stabs him to death resulting in Sgt/Tate (who is tough but thoughtful, maintains discipline, and is held in respect) having run out to attack Quinn. In their skirmish, Tate gets coiled in barbed wire resulting in Shakespeare rushing over attempting to save him but is unsuccessful as Quinn fatally bludgeons the Sgt with his club.

Shakespeare faces Quinn with his rifle and is taunted as a coward for again refusing to shoot. As psychopathic Quinn moves towards Shakespeare intent on certainly killing him, lines of barbed wire suddenly spring from the ground and snare Quinn, puncturing & squeezing the coldblooded savage sonofabitch. Shakespeare stops Quinn's writhing agony, and derangement, by shooting him, and takes crippled Friedrich back to the trench where he gives the German a rifle to defend himself before taking off to look for cynical Cpl/Fairweather. He checks in on an ill Chevasse who miraculously appears to be moving his legs and when he lifts up a blanket, he is horrified to see that a legion of rats have eaten Chevasse's legs down to the bone. Shakespeare shoots a hysterically screaming Chevasse in the head to end his grisly suffering, and finds Bradford who has tied Fairweather up in barbed wire. Fairweather says kill Bradford; Bradford seconds the notion; Shakespeare yet again refuses; Bradford shoots Fairweather in the head; and Shakespeare drops his hesitancy to bayonet Bradford in the stomach and finally shoot him. With his entire squad dead, the ground under the German bodies collapses and barbed wire blocks off entrances. Shakespeare is sucked down & pulled into a gaping pit, emerging in a cavern full of corpses where he is confronted with his squad as if at mealtime along with a version of himself. Freaked and defiantly shouting he isn't dead, he gets the heck out of Dodge and returns to the surface where a restored-to-health Friedrich aims his rifle at him. The Brit tells the German in English & French that he was the only one to look past him being an enemy and tried to help him. In English, Friedrich agrees and points to a ladder in the trench leading into No Man's Land, and tells him he's free to go. As Shakespeare asks what he'll find in the desolate territory, Friedrich has already vanished, and the Brit wanders out disappearing in the eerie mist. Afterwards another group of relief British soldiers turn up at the trench where they see Friedrich sitting, and shout at him to surrender. The German complies and stares forebodingly as an unsettling hint of the doomed ordeal ready to repeat again.

With its creepy atmosphere, mucky terrain of dirty grit & wet filth (the authentic detailed production design is great), and stress on paranoia, DEATHWATCH has a morality play theme throughout which at first due to a storyline that is rather jumbled and culminates in a mundane finish, is seemingly unclear until you start contemplating the phantom sequences that infer a stuck-in-limbo juncture of Purgatory and Hell. The movie has pacing issues where revved up moments are followed by slow & sluggish areas, and the not enough scares can be chalked up to the low budget but this disadvantage is nonetheless made up for with good acting from a great cast, and the sparse subgenre mix of military/horror would be perfect in the haunted arenas of The Twilight Zone, The Outer Limits, Tales from the Darkside, and even Doctor Who: As the squad dig in amongst the decomposition & squalor, and wallow in miserable rainy conditions, the fortifications themselves mess with their mental states from bizarre radio transmissions to screwy compasses spinning haywire. And as they fall prey to an unseen malevolent omnipresent force, hallucinations; strange sounds; rising tensions; and mounting dread all heighten the gloom & hopelessness which equals the men's growing suspicions that cause them to turn on each other. Left to guess about the little background/insights of the squad, we also have another (albeit veiled) WWI view of 'Lions led by Donkeys' -- the blue collar working class brave infantry presided over by the privileged rich snobbish Generals whose incompetence & indifference of sending troops 'over the top' was responsible for futile campaigns resulting in waste and slaughter. [Many critics have taken this widely held notion to task calling it an unfair stereotype that wrongly oversimplifies British strategists clumsily into false negative myth. Some newer historians & researchers have begun a rehabilitation of the 'Top Brass' in the academic divide on the perspective]. DEATHWATCH (which could have used a far better name, and not to be confused with DEATHWATCH (1966), DEATH WATCH (1980), or DEATH WATCH (UK 2013 aka A COMMON MAN) grossed nearly £900,000 in the UK over a one month period.

Bell carries the film as timid Shakespeare. He displays a youthful fright of being in over his head. [The result of a rude awakening from the original reasoning of the underaged who went to war out of patriotic enthusiasm for Empire, gallantry, and from peer pressure. They sought adventure and glory in what was believed would be a fight overwhelmingly in their favor that would be over in mere months]. Shakespeare's heavy-handed and predictable moral objections lie in the middle between pacifism and conscientious objector, but as a naive teen soldier ill-prepared for his environment and with dignity around him nosediving, he still flirts from greenhorn innocence to at last manning up. Serkis will forever be best known as Gollum from THE LORD OF THE RINGS series but as menacingly ferocious Quinn [who is right at home with any crazy Cockney gangster], he is extremely nasty and unglued; quick to kill his own as he is the Germans with virtually no provoking needed. If you can imagine APOCALYPSE NOW's Col. Kurtz more demented & homicidal x 10, this may explain why at times, without being a criticism of Serkis in the role, there's an odd vibe that just like Marlon Brando's although different depiction of insanity, feels like his character is also in a different film altogether. [Bell and Serkis reunited 3yrs later on Peter Jackson's KING KONG]. And lastly, Liebrecht was no stranger to war settings having appeared in ITV's "Monsignor Renard", later going on to the CBC's "X Company" and most recently playing an Israeli Mossad agent in OPERATION FINALE. In short, DEATHWATCH at best is an alright chiller with an emphasis on the quickly-spread debilitating distrust, but conceptually it has some problems via underdeveloped handling. And those who are sticklers for the authenticity of weapons will frown on the inconsistencies with the rifles as both the British & German guns here are WWII-era. Oops. Ultimately, the movie is definitely not ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT (which it manages to evoke in sporadic traces however), but as it's spiritually closer to EVENT HORIZON, it atleast goes for more than the sum of its grim parts with its presentation of the barbaric nature of war itself -- specifically dehumanization -- being the true horror.




TRENCH 11 (2017)
Rossif Sutherland, Robert Stadlober, Ted Atherton, Charlie Carrick, Adam Hurtig, Jeff Strome, Shaun Benson
Directed by Leo Scherman
Veteran Canadian tunneler Lt/Berton is underground beneath enemy trenches with a colleague listening for German activity. His mate is nervous about being discovered and is sent back to a waiting area. As Berton proceeds further, he passes the corpses of dead Germans and comes across an injured fellow soldier whose scream results in the above Germans setting off an explosive charge. 3 months later at Battalion HQ, 2 Intelligence officers, British Maj/Jennings (yes, our 2nd Jennings for this double bill) and Dr. Priests meet with a Colonel to debrief him with info about a secret German bunker in the French Argonnes Forest with a project being conducted in a tunneling complex. This enemy operation is headed by Reiner, nicknamed "The Prophet", and known for his use involving lethal chemical warfare. The duo believe the now-abandonned installation (which was supposed to be blown up) still contains Reiner's left-behind work, and propose their plan: a mission to investigate and gather up what they find. The Colonel approves and tells them a team will be comprised of Americans since they hold the nearby region as a result of heavy fighting that led to a German retreat. Berton is suggested as the leader who is currently on leave, having escaped 12 days of being trapped in the earlier tunnel collapse. He is drinking at the home of his French girlfriend (Veronique), talking about his plans to bring her back to Winnipeg but later that morning he is escorted by 2 MP's and brought back to his assembled team: Major Jennings, Doc, Capt/Cooper, Sgt/Pronger and Pvt/Kelly where they set off and first rest on the barren outskirts of the wintery Forest. The 3 ragtag Yanks grumble about Jennings being too gung ho and as dejected & sullen Berton drinks hard (probably to steady a shaky mental state from PTSD), they talk about his exploits with his reputation exceeding him, while making it no secret that they are unimpressed. Moving towards their target, the Yank trio are hopped up on a little stimulant called cocaine. They reach the trenches and follow a blood trail where they uncover a pile of German corpses.

Back at German Army HQ and with Armistice around the corner, Kapt/Mueller talks of a peace proposal while snobbish Reiner defends his concealed experiments (hinting at a dastardly plot that could turn the tide of the entire war) and is ordered by their General to officially shut down by returning to the site to make sure it is properly destroyed so the research can be kept out of allied hands. Inside the complex, Berton is told the mission is simple reconnaissance but as an expert navigator, he is skeptical from the layout as is Cooper, and Berton tells everyone to follow his orders. Descending down a rope burrowing into a shaft, the team with weapons out walk through a maze. Checking a sealed & boarded-up door, an encountered German begs them to leave it closed. As his pleas go ignored, he grabs the barrel of Cooper's shotgun and sticks it in his mouth resulting in the back of his head blown off. Jennings opens the door with Berton leading the men into hallways, deeper into the dilapidated bowels. Hearing thumping noises in a room and then seeing a running figure, the men panic with blind firing. A German jumps on Kelly and vomits a thick gooey substance all over his face before grabbing a grenade and blowing himself up around a corner which collapses an exit. The team continue to a stairwell and as Berton scouts ahead for another way out, the men speak of the dead German's sickly state (scoffing at Jennings' belief of shell shock) which Doc says may be a rumored lethal strain of influenza. As a deteriorating-in-health Kelly argues to ditch the mission and bail, Jennings orders it to continue, promising that an engineer group will come to their rescue should they fail to report back on schedule. As Berton presses on with Cooper, they reach a dining area while the other 4 enter a hospital quarters where they find blueprints for a vast subterranean laboratory. The men are suddenly attacked by a handful of Germans, one of whom Pronger stabs repeatedly while others run past and chase them.

The group of Germans all seem in the grip of some rage-type virus (and still seeming more than a little slightly sentient) as they are fatally shot down. Pronger finds a bottle of booze and takes a swig only to have a mutant German with powerful strength blitz him. The enemy is shot in the stomach with a sidearm and the team see what looks like a strand of squiggling angel hair spaghetti squirming about and wriggling back into the wound. Berton tells Cooper (who is dressing a small knife injury) that Jennings is hiding the real purpose of the mission and that the rescue promise is bullshit. As Doc autopsies the dead mutant, he finds the chest cavity infested with wriggling skin-crawling parasitic tapeworms that obviously shouldn't be found in humans. As more spill out of the nostrils, the worried Doc describes what they are looking at is man-made frenzied disease transmitted through human fluid. Unbeknownst to everyone, Reiner has re-entered the compound with a gasmasked squad of stormtroopers to clean up their mess. He tells them to watch out for infected comrades. When Jennings tries to round up the men to leave, they refuse to go without Berton and Cooper resulting in Pronger and Jennings coming to a stand-off with guns drawn. As the pistol-pointing Jennings accuses them of mutiny, he and Pronger are machinegunned by one of Reiner's soldiers leading to Doc and Kelly being taken prisoner. Berton and Cooper find the ladder exit but they also are captured. As the Germans juice up a generator, Reiner toasts the occasion (really more arrogantly himself) but Mueller is in no mood for celebration as he only cares about his men and destroying the base. He fails to see or sense that Reiner, whom he despises, has no intention of being co-operative. Mueller speaks to the remaining team of 4, demanding to know who is the lead tunneler for assistance in laying explosives while noble Doc pleads that the virulent contagion outbreak be contained to the present confines. Reiner asks him where the next allied assault will be launched and getting no answer, tries to appeal to Doc in both of them being men of science.

Reiner then attempts to intellectually justify his grotesque biological work (originally meant to decimate allied livestock before jumping species) but Doc tells him that such manipulation of medical study is a perversion of humanity. Reiner however considers the heightened aggression of violence that has been bred and the sheer compulsion to kill as a triumph of high discovery. Meanwhile, as Cooper leans in on a motionless Kelly (who appears unconscious due to his grown illness) to wake him up, he is suddenly lunged at with first his nose bitten off, and then a chunk of his throat chomped out. Berton empties his revolver into the afflicted Kelly, to the astonishment of Mueller who refuses to give him the map to the exit. In an unlikely partnership, both men reach agreement that they will not let such a hideous plague be unleashed. Away from this compromise, Doc and Reiner quarrel over the moral & ethical boundaries of conflict/combat with Reiner flying off into a furious nihilistic outburst [that can be clearly and unmistakably interpreted as the metaphorical/methodical opening stages of incorporated "master race" rhetoric and fanatical ideology about cleansing & purity, in the birth for what will soon become the burgeoning Nazi Party]. Reiner then winds up a gramophone [which is incorrect in the script -- it's actually a phonograph because of its spinning cylinder] before torturing Doc by extracting his left eye, killing him. Mueller brings Berton to a room housing all the main explosive charges which are wired-up, and is unaware that Reiner plans on leaving him to die. He shares beer with Berton and talks of looking forward to the end of the war. Unlike villainous Reiner, Mueller is a man of conscience and considers war itself the bigger infection -- with both sides sharing equal guilt. [For his quiet carefulness but continuing resilience, Berton stands as Mueller's natural counterpart as the duo have bonded out of mutual expedience for the greater good]. When they leave the room, they frantically have to take shelter from deliberately released gas meant to wipe everybody out, while Reiner mixes vials of potions and collected strains of the virus which he takes in a pouch.

Berton finds an auxiliary location and gives himself and Mueller 45min. to evacuate before a clock timer sets off the explosives. Just then, an infected German bursts in and smashes Mueller's ankle before being shot. With the clock broken, a hobbled Mueller decides he will sacrifice himself by setting off the explosive wires by hand, giving Berton 50min. to reach upper levels. As Berton makes his way, he is grabbed by another mutant behemoth who is choked out as the verboten vermicelli makes a pasta dinner plate of his monstrous face. Berton reaches the ladder exit but is shot in the left leg by Reiner who berates him for being a Colonial caught up in a foreign war that isn't his. Ordered to his knees & to raise his hands, Berton is then shot in the left hand by a gleeful unflinching Reiner. As Reiner tells him he's about to die under French soil, he is quickly puzzled by Berton's smiling which comes from precious time ticking down. Mueller triggers the detonation and in the rumbling blast, Berton shoots dead the accompanying soldier with Reiner. With both men now fighting (and Reiner's luger out of bullets), Reiner drops one of his poison vials, retrieves it, and tries to run away. But Berton grabs his leg and trips him causing the held vial to spear into Reiner's left eye (cosmic justice for Doc). Reiner screams in agony and is buried alive by a cave-in. Berton gets to the ladder and struggling to raise himself, he emerges above ground where having briefly passed out, he limps away the sole survivor. He thinks of Veronique [who as the only female could have worked better in moments less sappy, and here's hoping she is ready for Canadian winters] which is enough to keep him going. TRENCH 11 is basically a 'fast zombies made by mad science' indie movie. At times uneven and nothing too memorable, what it abandons in captivating action and flesh-ripping gore, it adequately compensates as mystery and slight body horror which is no surprise seeing as Director Scherman has worked with David Cronenberg. The movie is awash in dimly candle-lit claustrophobic isolation, with protagonists vs. antagonists locked in a race to make it out alive.

While not unwatchable, some may want more in the way of anxious nailbiting suspense, macabre torment and carnage in the infiltrated vast enclosure, but as the perilous backdrop of war always heightens terror, there is something particularly frightening in the exposition of how the Germans manufactured a ghastly secret weapon which they chillingly tested on their own soldiers only to have it run dangerously out of control. It's from this premise that could turn people into enslaved, test subject guinea pigs for the despicable likes of a Josef Mengele. When Reiner is told that an infected Europe could spread to engulf the rest of the world thus threatening mankind, he doesn't show the slightest bit of worry and instead answers in a ranting tirade about 'survival of the fittest'. In WWII, he would definitely be Red Skull to Captain America. TRENCH 11's measured momentum has an opening that is slow but doesn't crawl, and an ending that is lacking but plainly genuine. The soldiers' moods grinding their nerves into a sense of duress, desperation & hopelessness, create a psychologically tense atmosphere which is actually effective considering the very minimal but more than modest sfx (from a pairing who worked on CURSE OF CHUCKY, and CULT OF CHUCKY), grimy shadowy setting, twists & turns around corridors, and creepy Trent Reznor-esque synth score (which could've been more ominous had it been strings). Sutherland (son of Donald, and half-brother of Kiefer) is the drab, paunchy and burnt out but patient Berton. He is a strong silent-type, convincing as grizzled and cautious in the entombed and harrowing labyrinth. With the remainder of the war having turned into a quiet frontline, he balances just right in sidesteps of both having to carefully keep hidden throughout, weighed against the security breach of eventual exposure -- 2 paths which both give a tip of the cap to the same uncertainty found in ALIEN, THE THING, 28 DAYS LATER and a little bit of THE KEEP.