I watched Death Tunnel
because it was filmed at Waverly Hills Sanatorium in Louisville , KY. United States
(or, at the very least, in the Eastern region of the United States ). Living in Lexington , KY
Waverly Hills Sanatorium
The set-up was cool enough. They
took a cue from the actual history of Waverly Hills and tweaked it to make it
more sinister. Here is the basic story
of Waverly Hills: it was used in the early 1900s to treat a massive outbreak of
tuberculosis. A 500 foot tunnel was
built underneath the building as a way to easily bring in supplies. They weren’t able to treat the tuberculosis,
so a lot of patients died (at its peak, they estimate one patient death every
other day). In an attempt to keep the
morale up (apparently seeing dead bodies being rolled out a few times every
week didn’t do much to keep spirits up), they used the supply tunnel as a way
to discreetly remove dead bodies from the building. And there is the (very) abridged history of
Waverly Hills Sanatorium.
The "death tunnel"
For Death Tunnel, the name
has been changed to Vanguard Sanatorium, named after Richard J. Vanguard, who
opened the sanatorium and worked there as a doctor. As I said, they keep the same basic history
(used for tuberculosis patients, used the tunnel to remove the dead, etc.), but
they add some stuff. For instance,
Richard Vanguard experimented on the patients, so the death count was
significantly higher. The tunnel was
used more as a way to hide the number of deaths from the outside world, instead
of boosting morale. And so on. Bottom line: Richard Vanguard was an evil
man.
So that’s the set-up. That
doesn’t sound too bad, right? The pieces
are in place for a pretty good movie.
The story isn’t terrible. Five
college girls (required to wear “provocative nighttime attire”) end up
participating in an initiation called “Truth or Scare”. They have hoods placed on their heads, and
they’re all placed in separate rooms (well, two of them share a room, but whatever). The repeated mantra is, “Five girls, five
floors, five hours.” The first one to
make it out wins. (It’s never quite
clear what they win. It’s not entrance
to a sorority. As near as I could tell,
they win an invitation to a party house.)
They are also told that they will be encountering “five ghosts”. There are cameras all over the house. It’s a set-up. A prank.
A way for a couple guys to see five scantily clad girls run around for a
few hours.
And what a plan it was
But then the ghosts show up, and people start dying (the mantra changes
with each death, of course. “Four
girls…”). They discover that each girl
who was chosen had a connection to the sanatorium (their relatives were patients
or nurses, mainly). They begin assuming
the lives and memories of their relatives, and we find out a little more about
the sanatorium with each girl. There’s
also a guy involved: his name is Richie, he’s one of the guys who set up Truth
or Scare, and he’s the love interest of final girl.
And Richie is NOT happy to be there
It should be noted that one of the ghosts is a large figure in a gas
mask who pushes around a gurney, wears a rubber apron, and speaks in a muffled,
gravely voice. He carts off the dead
bodies, which brought to mind the hearse driver in Dead End.
Time to collect the bodies...
So, basically, girls try to escape.
Girls get possessed. Girls
die. And one girl gets naked and takes a
shower for no real reason. Because, when
you find yourself in a haunted sanatorium, the first thing you should do is
take a shower.
Who could've guessed it would turn into a haunted blood shower?
None of that looks terrible.
But here’s the thing: it absolutely was.
There were so many things wrong with this movie, I’m not quite sure
where to start. From time to time, there
would be a random flash-forward that accomplished nothing but confusion. They pulled me out of the movie, spun me
around, and put me back in. There was no
rhyme or reason to these. And they
happened pretty often.
This is how the movie started. Before we met her, we saw her kill face
The motivation of the characters never made sense. Why did they participate in this? Was it seriously just to be able to frequent
a college party house?
The acting was terrible. It
might have been some of the worst acting I’ve ever seen (and I’ve seen Galaxy Invader countless times). As near as I could tell, they just grabbed a
random assortment of beautiful(ish) people off the streets and said, “Can you
go to this haunted hospital and read these words? Thanks!”
Beyond the fact that these actors were terrible, most of them were
asked to play two parts. “Can you play a
normal college kid AND an insane suicidal nurse?” That’s a recipe for disaster right there.
Krazee-Eyez Tori
The writing was laughably bad. I
jotted down a couple of my favorite lines.
But, for every line I noted, there were a dozen that were nearly as
good.
-
“That’s where who died?” “MEEEEEE!”
-
“ You make me sick. Now I make you sick.” (This was pretty much delivered exactly the
same as, “You don’t bring me down. I
bring me down,” from Jerry McGuire. Except this was all muffled because it was
said by the gas mask guy. So, basically,
it sounded like a less jolly Bane.)
-
“Something in this place remembers. And it’s f***ing pissed off!”
-
“Vanguard said the only way out was death. The only way out is the death tunnel.”
And so on, and so forth.
The “ghosts” were pretty ridiculous.
Two pale naked chicks just kinda roaming the halls. A girl who just wanted to play catch with a
ball. The evil, scene-chomping Richard
Vanguard. They didn’t have many special
effects, which was good, because the ones they did have were awful.
What I’m saying is, this movie was awful. But it was awful in an entertaining way. I can see myself watching this again if the
setting is right (with a group of like-minded individuals and beer). If you’re looking for a good movie, you’re
out of luck. But, if you’re looking for
an entertaining movie, you could do worse than this.
Rating (quality): 1/5
Rating (entertainment value): 3.5/5
Just for fun, here are the girls: Devon, Elizabeth , Ashley, Tori and Heather. (Their first initials spell “death”. Get it?!)
Devon
Elizabeth
Ashley
Tori
Heather
1 comment:
Alright, keep this in mind for the Christmastime visit. I'm game. I love new game.
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