Search - Death Tunnel on DVD

Jessica P. (glamtron) from DEPEW, NY
Reviewed on 5/18/2008...

Completely transparent story. You might get a few jumps, maybe. It's entertaining at least and the setting is wonderful to look at. The couple stars I give it is based solely on the setting.

1 of 1 member(s) found this review helpful.

Where to start?

winston larue | corbin, ky United States | 06/12/2007

(1 out of 5 stars)

"I dont normally bother writing reviews because i know everyone has their own opinions and everyone likes different things, but if i can save at least one person from this awful movie it will be worth it. There are plenty other reviews that have pointed out all the problems with this movie so i will try not to just repeat them... but the first clue that this film was going to be bad was in the opening credits "shot, cut, and directed by philip adrian booth"! this means you are either dealing with an egomaniac or there was a very limited amount of creative forces at work. "shot" (aka filmed) with a 12 gauge, "cut" (aka edited) with a razor blade into a billion pieces and then taped back together randomly. if you are interested in this film PLEASE do not purchase it... i will gladly send you my copy which i paid 7.50 for and still feel cheated. if you have seen this movie... why did they never simply walk downstairs and try to go out the door? or even go out one of the many busted out windows? ive recently been to waverly hills and i know for a fact that they have just now started rennovating and replacing the windows... when this movie was filmed there werent any windows in the building! its evident in one of the first scenes! i hate this film and anyone who had anything to do with it!"

There is no light at the end of this cinematic tunnel

Daniel Jolley | Shelby, North Carolina USA | 05/06/2007

(1 out of 5 stars)

"Five girls. Five floors. Five hours. And believe you me, it will feel like every second of five hours before you finally reach the light at the end of the tunnel that is The End. Now I knew going in that most people hated this movie, but I still wanted to see it, dadgummit. After all, five sexy coeds in a haunted sanitorium can't be all that bad, can it? The answer is a resounding Yes - it can and is that bad. This isn't the kind of bad movie that totally amateur filmmakers might go out and shoot over the course of a weekend, either. It takes a lot of hard work and effort to make a horror movie this wretchedly awful. Apparently, it helps when the producer and director dress like Axl Rose. The direction is terrible, jumping back and forth between the actual initiation and the leadup to it for at least the first half of the film and leaving a number of logistical questions completely unanswered. Still, the brunt of the blame must fall upon the writers of this incoherent mess, for they truly deserve to be run out of town by a mob of pitchfork-wielding villagers.



Kentucky's Waverly Hills Sanatorium serves as an ideal setting for the horrors that were supposed to be unleashed here (in fact, the most interesting thing on the whole DVD is the descriptions by cast and crew of some of the spooky things they really experienced there), but Death Tunnel does no favors to the very real history of this medical institution. The filmmakers reportedly used some actual EVP recordings in the movie, but, unfortunately, there is no explanation as to how these were obtained.



At least the five girls aren't bad looking at all, especially lead actress Steffany Huckaby. Don't look for too much in the way of nudity, however, as the filmmaking Booth Brothers obviously don't subscribe to the old "the worse the movie is, the more nudity you show" tradition (if they did, they would have had no need for a costumer at all). Not a single character is given an ounce of substance, so you could care less if and how any of them might die. What you have here are just five college girls chosen for a special initiation at a Truth or Scare party. One girl is deposited on each of the five floors (except they put two of them together for no apparent reason), and they have five hours to get out of the place by way of the infamous Death Tunnel. They know all this, and there are pictures and newspaper clippings everywhere identifying the place as an old sanitorium, yet it takes Heather, supposedly the smart one, almost seventy-five minutes to figure it out (which takes something away from what is supposed to be a climactic scene). And the ending? Don't even get me started on the ending.



A lot of work went into the special effects, but it's just a list of all your usual suspects - blurred images, shaking cameras, and computer-generated ghosts up the wazoo. In other words, it's nothing we haven't seen before, especially in the past few years. Personally, I found Death Tunnel about as scary as cutting my toenails. I could be nice and say the filmmakers probably just tried too hard to make this movie scary, but there's no getting beyond the fact that this is one rotten egg stinker of a horror movie."

Unforgivable Direction, Story, and Acting. How Could This Mo

Just Bill | Grand Rapids, MI United States | 04/25/2007

(1 out of 5 stars)

"How is it possible to set a movie in what's become known as "the scariest place on earth" and have it turn out so badly?



Beats me. But these people managed it.



The premise was passable, albeit B-movie all the way: "Five sexy coeds who've been dared to spend the night" in a creepy old building. (Note to future filmmakers: Any movie that starts with "five sexy coeds" is going to bomb.)



The location (Waverly Hills Sanatorium in Louisville, KY) amply provided the creepy old building. Images of Waverly Hills, alone, are enough to give someone the willies. Despite that, the scariest thing about Death Tunnel is that it got made in the first place.



The fault for this train wreck lies squarely with the script and the direction (both of which came from Philip Adrian Booth). I can't blame the actors. They probably thought it would turn out differently. At the very least, they knew they'd get a paycheck for their work. But the dialog and direction are horrendous. The director supposed mechanically-altered voices (low-pitched, of course, to sound evil), rapid jump-cuts, and grainy, often out-of-focus shots and nerve-jangling noises interspersed with whatever vapid acting was happening on screen equal suspense. He supposed wrong. They equal headache.



Hopefully, Mr. Booth hasn't yet quit his day job.



Watch this film only to see the setting, Waverly Hills Sanatorium. But be prepared to be thoroughly disappointed and frustrated by a movie that could have been outstanding with a better script -- and a director more interested in letting the story unfold than in taking the kitchen-sink approach by adding every horror-movie cliche ever seen."