DEATH TRENCH (a.k.a. Trench 11) **** Canada 2017 Dir: Leo Scherman 90 mins
A Canadian tunneller together with an English Major, Medic and a small team of US soldiers join forces on a reconnaissance mission to investigate an underground German bunker that was apparently hastily vacated in the final days of WW1. What they discover is highly dangerous, contagious and top secret. The team need to consider an ultimate sacrifice to protect the world from this threat. Another take on the Nazi zombie/War genre that does a really good job. There are a number of these movies appearing at the moment and whilst the zombies in this aren’t a prominent feature they are a good take on the idea. These zombies are live humans infected with a parasite that sends them into a violent rage and become highly contagious to all who come into contact with them. There is some great gore and the body horror is frequent and glorious with a gruesome and detailed autopsy element. The atmosphere is gloomy, claustrophobic and tense once it properly gets going. There are some great multilayered characters with Charlie Carrick as the medic Dr. Priest, Shaun Benson as Kapitan Müller and Robert Stadlober as Reiner being stand outs. Rossif Sutherland as half cut hero Lt. Berton is a little ropey at times but I did warm to him eventually. There is some usual macho posturing but luckily not too much it gets annoying. It draws a few similarities to OVERLORD mostly being from the same time period, minus the huge budget and action scenes it is still an engaging, well shot and enjoyable movie.
Review by Sarah Budd