This film is very well done from the point of view of setting the scene. This squad of English soldiers are engaged in the awful trench warfare of WW1. They go over the top and are apparently mowed down by machine gun fire and exploding shells. Next we see them trudging over No Man's Land in the fog. At this point it's pretty certain that they're dead and in some kind of hell, or purgatory. Though masterful in setting the scene, the mythic underpinnings of the story are confused or non-existent.
They come to a German trench which is full of corpses and a few live Germans. They kill the survivors except one, whom they imprison in an ammunition locker. But the trench itself seems to be attacking them. One by one they are being killed in horrible ways. Some by their buddies and some strangled by barbed wire that emerges from the mud. War is hell, but this is hell upon hell. The horror is unrelenting.
Now war in the trenches is about as horrible as it gets. You really don't need supernatural effects to make it more horrible. Here the movie falls apart. It raises questions it can't answer. Why are these deceased soldiers being put through this additional hell after the hell of trench warfare? They behave as you might suppose any normal young men might under the circumstances, which is to become beasts. They're paranoid, they make bad decisions and they fight with each other. But what do you expect?
In the end there is one English 'survivor' of the horror in the German trench. He's the only one who helped the surviving German and protested the madness of his fellows. In the end he's allowed to 'go free' for his humanity. Whatever that means. I suppose that means he can now go to Heaven while the others are condemned to repeat the hellish experience in the German trench for all Eternity. But since these young men have become beasts only because they've been subjected to the extreme dehumanizing experience of war, we can't feel they are really bad guys, they don't deserve this gruesome punishment. Well, maybe one of the guys is a real psychopath, but the others are victims of the horror of war.
Ultimately this movie is a depressing downer. There is no payoff. Neither is it an anti-war movie because none of the issues surrounding WWI are brought up. If the movie makers just wanted to make us feel horrified and disgusted they could just have just shown war as it really is, there was no need for the supernatural bit. Horror movies should have some element of fun, or at least a sense of justice. Here there is neither fun nor justice. There is enough horror in the real world, a horror movie should have a point and this has none.
They come to a German trench which is full of corpses and a few live Germans. They kill the survivors except one, whom they imprison in an ammunition locker. But the trench itself seems to be attacking them. One by one they are being killed in horrible ways. Some by their buddies and some strangled by barbed wire that emerges from the mud. War is hell, but this is hell upon hell. The horror is unrelenting.
Now war in the trenches is about as horrible as it gets. You really don't need supernatural effects to make it more horrible. Here the movie falls apart. It raises questions it can't answer. Why are these deceased soldiers being put through this additional hell after the hell of trench warfare? They behave as you might suppose any normal young men might under the circumstances, which is to become beasts. They're paranoid, they make bad decisions and they fight with each other. But what do you expect?
In the end there is one English 'survivor' of the horror in the German trench. He's the only one who helped the surviving German and protested the madness of his fellows. In the end he's allowed to 'go free' for his humanity. Whatever that means. I suppose that means he can now go to Heaven while the others are condemned to repeat the hellish experience in the German trench for all Eternity. But since these young men have become beasts only because they've been subjected to the extreme dehumanizing experience of war, we can't feel they are really bad guys, they don't deserve this gruesome punishment. Well, maybe one of the guys is a real psychopath, but the others are victims of the horror of war.
Ultimately this movie is a depressing downer. There is no payoff. Neither is it an anti-war movie because none of the issues surrounding WWI are brought up. If the movie makers just wanted to make us feel horrified and disgusted they could just have just shown war as it really is, there was no need for the supernatural bit. Horror movies should have some element of fun, or at least a sense of justice. Here there is neither fun nor justice. There is enough horror in the real world, a horror movie should have a point and this has none.