DEATH TUNNEL

DEATH TUNNEL
By Aine

After a long wait, and what will be a longer wait for those who didn’t make it to the sold out screening of at this year’s Screamfest L.A. film festival, I finally got to see Death Tunnel, a new horror film from the Booth Brothers. I knew that this was a highly anticipated film and screening, but I was a bit blown away when faced with the overwhelming line of people ready and willing to check out one hell of a movie. I count myself among those people, and was just grateful to be there.

For the first time of any significance since Quentin Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction, we are treated to a non-linear editing style to tell the story of Waverly Hills Sanatorium, an old TB (White Plague) hospital in Kentucky that Death Tunnel is filmed in. 63,000 people died there and the bodies were secretly removed via the "Death Tunnel" which ran underneath the building.

The tag line goes: 5 girls, 5 floors, 5 ghosts. The basic premise is that 5 college girls are chosen to go to the old sanatorium, and spend five hours there. There are 5 floors, and you guessed it, there are 5 ghosts.

Each girl is placed somewhere inside on separate floors, blindfolded, dressed in a slinky outfit, which a letter painted on them in red. Put together in the correct order, their letters spell D.E.A.T.H. The best part is the clever mix of trying to figure out which things are done by the guys, and which things are done by the ghosts, at least at first. Our Death ladies try to make their way through and out of the hospital, but it won’t be easy with murderous ghosts wondering around; including the uber creepy guy with a gas mask and weird wires everywhere while he pushes a creaky cart around. It’s like something out of a Marilyn Manson video but we’ll get into that later.

As the 5 hours wind down, we seem to be losing ladies one at a time, in addition to the guy who’s supposed to be watching the cameras. There are some other twists and turns along the way. It's a story very similar to a movie I’ve already seen, but since I cannot remember what movie that is I’ll just chock it up to déjà vu.

But these are just the plain facts, there is also a fantastic underlying love story, music video style editing, and some major creepy moments. Though the actual Death Tunnel doesn’t show up until late, it’s still effective, with the creepy gas-mask guy in hot pursuit; I wanted to run away right along with the characters. Death Tunnel is a unique film, with great music, a definite sense of style, and superb use of a location to (pardon the pun) die for.

Keep an eye out for Death Tunnel, and the as yet to be seen Spooked, a documentary about the making of the film and the real-life ghost stories on set.

Visit Death Tunnel on the web at www.deathtunnel.com

Visit Spooked at www.spooked.org

For information about the real location visit the Waverly Hills Sanatorium at www.waverlyhillstbsanatorium.com