In 2018, director Brian Hanson, screened his debut feature, The Black String, at Pigeon Shrine FrightFest. Now, six years later, he is back at the genre film festival with his sophomore movie, The Bunker. Whereas The Black String was firmly within the horror thriller arena, The Bunker mixes alien invasions with cloak and dagger science to create a paranoia fuelled chamber piece.
After alien ships arrive on Earth, a group of scientists are selected to work on the creation of a bioweapon that can be used against them. Amongst the six selected scientists for this covert project is Doctor Michelle Riley (Chelsea Edmundson), who must leave behind her angry brother and understanding father (played by Saw icon, Tobin Bell), to live in an undisclosed underground research facility. Although younger than her peers, Michelle has been selected due to her expertise. She immediately struggles with imposter syndrome however, which is exacerbated by the teasing of some of her new colleagues who believe her too inexperienced for such a high stakes project. If dealing with these feelings wasn’t enough, Michelle is then ‘scanned’ by the alien enemy, causing her to hallucinate a whole host of grotesque imagery.
Set within the solitary confinement of the bunkers, Michelle and her team must work together remotely. This causes further fractures within the group dynamic; the entirety of The Bunker is one big pressure cooker. The eventual mistrust and paranoia are immediately signposted to the viewer with the inclusion of a brief jump to the final act for the opening moments. Here Michelle is seen hiding from someone, or something, that clearly poses a threat. This sequence quickly captures the audience’s intrigue, before jumping back in time to begin filling in the blanks. After a very brief – less than five minute – set-up of the state of the world, Michelle is placed into her isolated bunker. This means that Hanson has maximum time to sow the seeds of loneliness and paranoia. The narrative is punctuated by markers that announce how many days have passed, and as the numbers increase, so does the claustrophobic nature.
Amongst the well executed tension, The Bunker also raises some interesting discussion points. Although the team have been tasked with creating a weapon to harm an alien species, opinions on their intentions vary. Given that the sextet are hidden deep underground with only the mission leader, Frank (Tony Todd), able to occasionally communicate with the surface, they have no idea what is happening above. These discussions on the aliens make some very valid points, especially around mankind’s common belief that everything is a threat.
In terms of visuals, The Bunker leans into the sci-fi film colour pairing of whites and blues. It’s a familiar colour scheme within the genre that rarely fails to work. It is such a familiar choice within science-fiction that, given the alien invasion aspect of the story, it does mean that The Bunker occasionally has the appearance of a SyFy channel movie. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but could cause some more snobbish viewers to view it more harshly. The Bunker’s point of difference however, is the inclusion of Michelle’s visions. These are fleeting moments of exceptionally quickly edited sequences of images that are full of gory and graphic visions. These serve to unsettle the viewer, adding in a smidge of Event Horizon style horror to shake up the status quo.
As The Bunker approaches its climax, Michelle finds herself in impossible situation after impossible situation. Whilst most of these scenes work, some character development within the surrounding scientists happens too fast to have the desired impact. This process needs to happen to position Michelle in the right place for the finale, but it ultimately feels too rushed. The isolation between bunkers also makes it hard to fully invest in any of Michelle’s relationships. They all play out on screen and this generates an element of detachment and, for the audience, she never feels properly under threat by those in her proximity.
A well realised science heavy sci-fi story, The Bunker doesn’t quite achieve the same level of enjoyment as The Black String. It does however, demonstrate that Hanson has a flair for sci-fi and should he continue to work within this area, THN would gladly watch what he cooks up next.
The Bunker
Summary
A fairly standard science-fiction chamber piece that is at its best when leaning into isolation induced paranoia.
The Bunker was reviewed at Pigeon Shrine FrightFest 2024.
