Review: The Tunnel (2011) ★★½

Australia has produced a number of horror films throughout the late 2000s and early 2010s that far exceeded expectations. The Babadook (2014), The Loved Ones (2009), and The Reef (2010) are all very different kinds of horror films that set the bar pretty high for the genre as a whole. While The Babadook doesn’t put its Australian setting to great use (and it didn’t need to), many other Australian horror films cash in on people’s fear of untamed wilderness, backwoods lunatics, and desperate isolation in many parts of the country. Carlo Ledesma’s found-footage horror film, The Tunnel (2011), is no exception.

The Tunnel is a documentary-style horror film (full disclosure: this is not my favorite subgenre). The plot follows Natasha (Bel Deliá), a journalist determined to investigate a government project that was suddenly halted without explanation. According to the New South Wales government, the abandoned train tunnels beneath Sydney contain millions of liters of freshwater — water that could help solve the state’s water shortages. 

We come to find out that, in addition to the project reaching an inexplicable standstill, dozens of vagrants living in the abandoned tunnels have reportedly gone missing. So, Natasha takes a film crew consisting of her producer, Peter (Andy Rodoreda), cameraman, Steven (Steve Davis), and sound engineer, Tangles (Luke Arnold), down into the old train tunnels to get to the bottom of the mystery.

As you can imagine, things don’t go so well for Natasha and her crew. Lighting is limited in the web of empty tunnels, so the crew must use their night-vision camera to look around (a narrative technique that has been used in a wide range of horror films, from 28 Weeks Later to REC). They soon come to find out exactly why the project was halted, as well as the whereabouts of the ill-fated vagrants.

If The Tunnel sounds vaguely familiar, that’s because it borrows heavily from dozens of other horror films produced in the mid-2000s. The Descent (2005), The Descent: Part 2 (2009), Creep (2004), and The Cave (2005) all contain similar stories about a group trapped underground with an entity that wishes them harm. However, The Tunnel is the only one of these films to take the “found-footage” approach, which makes it stand out to a certain degree. 

Nonetheless, The Tunnel is a pretty standard, by-the-books monster movie. The characters get chased down and picked off by a conveniently illusive beast lurking somewhere in the labyrinth of tunnels. It takes a while for us to get a few glimpses of the monster, and each is brief and annoyingly distorted. I’m of the opinion that horror filmmakers should either show a monster or they shouldn’t; I’m not a fan of the frustrating middle ground of many found-footage films.

That said, there are some advantages to this approach. Tension builds as the crew struggles to find their way out of the tunnels, all while being terrorized by an unseen, seemingly unstoppable force. Limited lighting and inconvenient POVs leave us guessing and staring intensely at every passing shadow. This allows The Tunnel to be genuinely creepy at times.

Despite the scares, the narrative is still painfully familiar; and the derivative story is not the film’s only shortcoming. All of the performances are mediocre at best, which is mostly the fault of subpar writing. The dialogue simply isn’t believable, so the more the characters talk and over-explain their frightening predicament, the less frightening it becomes.

While I’m certainly showing my own biases, I’ve just never been a fan of found-footage films, horror or otherwise. Quality cinematography is one of the best parts of film as a distinct medium, so taking this out of the equation entirely for the sake of realism feels wrong. Instead of trying to make the film look real, the filmmakers should have spent more time making the characters feel three-dimensional and the dialogue more natural.

While our brief view of the monster is legitimately frightening, the scares don’t last very long. If you’re a fan of found-footage horror films, Australian horrors, or B-grade monster movies in general, you’ll likely find something of value in The Tunnel; if not, this is probably not the horror movie for you. Either way, just keep your eyes open for the monster and try to ignore the dialogue.

Rating: ★★½ out of 5

If you’d to watch The Tunnel (2011), it is currently available to purchase via Amazon here.