Smartorhypo Highly Overrated But Still Good

InformationRap This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

Ogosmith Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.

Beulah Bram A film of deceptively outspoken contemporary relevance, this is cinema at its most alert, alarming and alive.

Fella_shibby I saw this film in 2003 on a DVD. Nice film. The movie could have been very good if some attention was paid towards editing n screenplay. Good direction by Michael J. Bassett. Decent acting by Andy Serkis n Jamie Bell. Nevertheless it has some of the most realistic screen recreations of trench life at its worst, rats, rains n ruins. The flick has an eerie atmosphere, wonderfully creepy, suspenseful n nicely enhanced by the mud of trenches. Set design is excellent, shot very well all the dirtiness and filthiness with the muddy trenches n continuous rains. There's enough gore n tension. Some good cinematography by Hubert Taczanowski. The atmosphere, and the design made you feel as if you actually were in a world war one trench. The rain and the place were characters themselves.

ikeybabe This was good, really good. The cast was excellent and the story bold, spooky and kept you wondering what the hell was going on. In fact, by the end *SPOILER ALERT* you figure out these dudes are in a kind of hell, commonly known as purgatory. I love purgatory stories. The movie was nicely paced with enough twists to keep you on the edge of your seat and the setting with the fog and mud and the guy peering through the caked-on mud was dramatic. I really liked the way it ended too - because you know the scary is not over yet. A nice little find on Netflix. Also, Jamie Bell is an excellent actor - even back then because he was seriously young. Overall, a very enjoyable film.

dockbillin-2 2014 is the centenary of the "war to end all wars", as they called it then - the war to which young men were pushed into joining, cheered on by civilians at the home front who had not the faintest idea what the fighting involved. In this film,we see the reality - trenches full of glutinous mud, corpses stuck in the mud, the wounded eaten alive by rats; death in all forms - death by shell and bullet,by spiked club (they really did use those for trench raiding parties), death by bayonet and barbed wire.The Good War it wasn't.This is an excellent movie, not least because it doesn't pull its punches. The basic premise - which isn't a spoiler to give away - is improbable, but then all ghost tales are. But the acting is good, the atmosphere is *excellent*, and the pace never, ever, lets up. One finds oneself grateful that it isn't a Hollywood film, though - there are none of the tired tropes of American filmdom, stock characters, predictable ending, and the rest of it.This isn't a pretty film, but then it doesn't pretend to be; and its subject, the brutal war in which the 19th Century gave way to the modern era, is anything but pretty.In the making, though not in the subject matter, this scores higher than the 1979 version of All Quiet On The Western Front, and higher than A Very Long Engagement. If they ever get round to remaking All Quiet, with modern cinematography, I'd be interested in seeing how it stacks up to this. Highly recommended.

Dumont Lamont My only gripe about this film is that it is a trench combat film, yet nobody had or used a spade. I would have liked to have seen that. But other than that this film is very well done. The way it starts off, it could have been a solid WW1 film. The actors are brilliant and the director does a great job of showing how nasty the trenches are, with rats, mud, constant rain, dead bodies, and such. The film is intense, it was tiresome to watch, and I just kept thinking how tired and frustrated these soldiers must be. The acting, the characters, the location (trench), the filming it drew me in. Now let's talk about the supernatural element, reminds me a bit of Jacob's Ladder and Event Horizon put together. Those two films are usually spoken highly of, so I'm saying this as a compliment that it has elements of both of those films put together and executed successfully. Also the ending is kind of like Ghostship, someone on here said it was death, I kept saying to myself Hades, so yeah, there is an ongoing cycle which makes the story a little bit clever. Special effects reminds me of Hellraiser 2 although not as intensive, and also along the lines of Evil Dead, anyway I'll take this over the CGI mess you frequently see today. To me the budget of this film didn't seem low, if I had seen this in the theater I would have been satisfied. The WW1 aspect of the film was good enough to stand alone as a pure WW1 flick IMO, and the undead barbwire guys looked really awesome, too bad we only get to see them once. The supernatural aspect of the story to me is well done too and it makes sense to me. I was pleasantly surprised!