Movie Review by Neils Hesse
Starring: Franka Potente, Sean Harris, Vas Blackwood, Jeremy Sheffield
Director: Christopher Smith
So it’s late you’re a bit tipsy and you slump down on a chair on a platform waiting for the last underground train only to be rudely awakened by a station attendant informing you that you’ve missed the last train and have to leave the station, now imagine if the station attendant never turns up and you find yourself locked up in the station, what would you do next? Kate (Franka Potente) is a young London socialite who misses her train on the London Underground only to later discover that she has been locked in and there’s apparently no one else but her around. Just as she begins to really panic she hears a train and she decides to get on it, but shortly after it takes off it stops and the lights go off and someone begins to approach her in the darkness. It turns out to be a naughty work mate of hers who wants her sexually, so he is more than happy to be trapped with her in the station but as she makes it clear that she is not interested, he takes matters into his own hands and tries to rape her only to be ferociously pulled off her. Seconds later she sees him dripping with blood and beckoning her to run before he gets pulled away under the train again. Now Kate has to run for her life from whatever it is that just killed her workmate but the question is whether she is running from it or towards it?
Christopher Smith directs this intriguing and also very gory horror flick at a snappy pace with a few jump moments but he chooses to concentrate more on gore than shock. As a gory, slimy horror film it succeeds as there are plenty of shots of rats and cutting up of bodies apparently being fed to rats. He doesn’t bother to explain a lot of things in the film such as why, when and how Kate’s workmate got on the same train as she did, also the genesis of whatever it is that grabbed Kate’s workmate is never fully explored. Perhaps this is a clever way of leaving room for a sequel or indeed prequel. He had a chance of making an ALIEN style heroine but instead chose to go with the usual screaming girl in high heels, duck out of water theme. I do tip my hat to him though, for one particular scene that highlights the nature of a so called civilized society by showing how people do not get involved in any situation that does not directly concern them in some way.
Franka Potente is a sufficiently believable Londoner who finds herself fighting for her life, as she is forced to do things that she would have never imagined she would. Supporting acts from Vas Blackwood and Paul Rattray, as respectively a talkative sewer worker and a homeless drug addict, give worthy performances.
All in all this ought to satisfy the average gore/horror fan but for the more critical fan it will prove to be lacking in shock value. Also the back story is not really explained. Still it is quite fast paced and bloody so for those two elements and for Franka Potente have fun… but think twice before you catch that last train!
