Project Detail

The Bunker

Synopsis

French/German border - late 1944. The forests of the Ardennes. A platoon of battle-weary German soldiers, forced into confusion and retreat by advancing Allied forces, take refuge in an isolated Siegfried Line bunker. As night falls and a rainstorm begins to blow, the exhausted soldiers huddle in the concrete shelter - trapped by the advancing GI's.

A brief and violent assault upon the Bunker from the surrounding Americans is followed by a period of tense calm and, in the cold darkness of the bunker, the wise older soldier, MIRUS, mischievously relates to the others a story he'd heard from locals in the nearby village. The ancient surrounding forest, he reveals, is haunted; witches were burned here in the middle ages and, during the Black Death, the infected victims had been slaughtered and buried here, in an attempt to cleanse the village. At the same time, the newcomers also learn of adjoining tunnels, which connect the bunker to an abandoned underground munitions storage complex which might well be the only way out.

An eerie noir thriller in the classic tradition of Val Lewton's 'psychological horror' films of the 1940's, relying on character, mood and inference, rather than the contemporary trend of graphic violence - a chilling metaphorical tale which combines the best elements of Sam Peckinpah's Cross of Iron and Robert Wise's The Haunting.

Details

Year
2001
Type of project
Features
Running time
93 mins
Format
35mm, Optical, Kodak
Director
Rob Green
Producer
Daniel Figuero
Editor
Richard Milward
Screenwriter
Clive Dawson
Director of Photography
John Pardue
Sound
John Hayes (Production Sound Recordist)
Composer
Russell Currie
Principal cast
Jason Flemyng, Jack Davenport, Christopher Fairbank, John Carlisle, Andrew Leepotts, Andrew Tiernan, Simon Kunz, Eddie Marsan, Charley Boorman

Categories

Production Status

Production Company

Millennium Pictures

Contact: Daniel Figuero
Pinewood Studios
Iver Heath
Bucks SL0 0NH
UK

T 01753 651700

daniel@figuero.freeserve.co.uk

Sales Company

High Point Films

Contact: Elisar Cabrera
25 Elizabeth Mews
London NW3 4UH
UK

T 00 44 (0)20 7586 3686

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