The Bunker review

June, 1944: a group of demoralised, battle-weary German soldiers take shelter at a bunker in the Ardennes Forest. Low on ammunition, they decide to retreat from the advancing American forces through a system of underground tunnels. But there's a problem: these subterranean corridors were built on the site of a medieval plague pit. Which means, naturally, they're rumoured to be haunted.

Opening, somewhat pretentiously, with Nietzsche's famous quote about gazing into the abyss, this British horror film attempts to unsettle through suggestion and inference rather than explicit gore. An admirable intention, for sure, but while the explanation for the men's ghostly visions remains pleasingly ambiguous throughout, any good work is undone by the distractingly motley English accents and the formulaic characterisations (Jason Flemyng's reluctant hero, Andrew Tiernan's pill-popping Nazi, John Carlisle's spooked old-timer). Director Rob Green, meanwhile, proves unable to sustain tension amid all the shouting, running and shooting.