Sigh..Death Tunnel is another low-budget horror flick that is just so dull and mundane that it hurts to sit through the whole film. The film is over-directed, which some may think could be a good trait, but not in this case. Death Tunnel is about five college girls who all agree to spend a night in a horrific old asylum as part of a co-ed type event. Enter a few snickering boys trying to scare them and you have a horror film. Excuse me while I try to regain my thoughts as the film was a big yawn fest. < ...p>
The girls tend to walk around wearing next to nothing, which is one of the few positives about the film. They scream out each others’ names and wonder about until random people keep dropping dead. Naturally we have your standard semi-serious sentences like ‘this isn’t funny anymore’. The film is definitely right. The film isn’t funny anymore, nor did it ever get amusing or particularly good in any sense of the imagination.
The film takes place over 11 parts. All of these parts seem to be rehashed and try to borrow parts from successful horror films, but fail miserably. The two filmmakers, Phillip & Chris Booth have only one good thing to bring to this film. Both have access to an extremely scary asylum known as the Waverly Hills Sanatorium. The asylum, naturally, is run-down, deserted and is located in Louisville, Kentucky.
We are given a bunch of various insta-flashbacks that either go forward or give us more background. The problem is that the film never stops to notice that one of the minor subplots is ever engaging or remotely intriguing. Here is an example. A few girls wake up in an asylum and we are given a flashback to their hazing ritual. Why is this done? To artificial inflate the running time to 90 minutes?
Death Tunnel is another typically cheap, boring, unoriginal horror film that lacks anything remotely amazing or interesting. It’s very evident that both Booth brothers had far more interesting in this film than anyone on the cast because so many looked bored and lacked any real spark. Why can’t we have classic horror films like Psycho anymore?
Video
Death Tunnel is presented in a 1:78:1 Anamorphic Widescreen Aspect Ratio. I was quite surprised by the image quality here. For such a low budget flick with a High Definition Master Print, the quality was quite nice. Colors looked fine and pretty bright. I did notice some edge enhancements in the flashbacks scenes toward the beginning. The image quality is nothing to write home about, but it gets the job done for a horror flick.
Audio
We are given a Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound Audio Track which sounded pretty good. Dialogue was rather clear from the front speakers while screams and cries were easy to make out from the supporting speakers. There is no real huge bass response on this film, but there was not much real action to speak of. A pretty sharp job on Sony’s part.
Special Features
A pretty pathetic amount of features here.
- Death is in Fashion: This extremely brief features shows us a reel of snapshots of the film’s actresses dressed in pretty revealing and sometimes torn up undergarments.
- Death Tunnel: An Inside Look at the Film: This 20 minutes making of is just like any other making of in that it features many of the cast members commenting on the process of making the film, the set, what was fun/was not fun. Pretty basic.
- Photo Gallery: Here we get a host of different photos.
- Trailers: Here we get trailers for the films Dark Kingdom: The Dragon King, Dirty, and Underworld: Evolution
Closing Thoughts
Death Tunnel is so bad and boring that I can’t even recommend the film for an evening rental. While the film does boast acceptable picture and audio for a low-budget film, I’m shocked that a company like Sony would ever think of picking up this film. By all means skip this trite, terribly ridiculous film.
Special Features List
- Death is in Fashion
- Death Tunnel: An Inside Look at the Film
- Photo Gallery
- Trailers
Screenshots
