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Australia Wants To Scare The Sh*t Out Of You - For Free

By TK | Posted Under Trailers | Comments (15)

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Well, as far as gimmick films go, this is one of the more interesting. Below are the trailer and poster for the Australian film The Tunnel, about a news crew that travels underneath Sydney to investigate water resources. As you can imagine, shit goes wrong, although exactly what sort of shit that may be (zombies? ghosts? demons? vampires? midget albino cannibals?) is not revealed.

What makes the film interesting is that it’s got a strong online viral campaign going, and it’s completely fan-funded. Which on the surface is sometimes annoying — a lot of people thought the pleas for money for the Nazi mooonbase movie Iron Sky smacked of opportunism, but with The Tunnel, they’re going one step further — they’re releasing the film for free, via bittorrent.

This is actually a pretty awesome idea. If the movie sucks, who cares, you saw it for free. If it’s anything more than that — sweet! You saw it for free. In fact, if it succeeds and starts a trend, it’s the type of thing that could potentially panic the studios, and that’s never a bad thing. Conceived by Julian Harvey and Enzo Tedeschi and directed by Carlo Ledesma, it’s a pretty bold idea regardless of the outcome.

Anyway, here’s the poster, which is comprised of the first thousand people who donated (donations were $1 per frame of film and yes, I admit that I bought a few just for kicks). It’s actually a pretty cool poster (click it for a high resolution version):

TheTunnel_Facew.jpg

And here’s the trailer. It feels a little bit like the Spanish [Rec], and it’s a wee bit generic, but given what’s going on behind the scenes, I’m still interested.

I’ll tell you, the foreign low-budge independent horror flicks are getting much more interesting than the American ones. Between films like [Rec], the single-take The Silent House, and this, there’s some real innovation going around the world. They may not all end up hits, but at least they’re trying new things. Instead of just making Saw 45.









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Comments

I can't stand these shot in the dark films. As good as The Descent was and Quarantine might of been, it hurts my brain to constantly strain my eyes to see what the fuck is going on. I am assuming a lot about The Tunnel, but I can't imagine it won't be the same.

Posted by: Gavin S. at December 9, 2010 10:28 AM

midget albino cannibals

Make them have shape-shifting abilities and I think we have a movie. Just imagine the fun of shape-shifting midget albino cannibals unleashed in an underground water system. Brings a tear to my eye just to picture the messed up things the right twisted mind could bring to those proceedings.

Posted by: Robert at December 9, 2010 10:37 AM

I can't buy into the premise. In my experience, local TV "news" teams do NOT EVER go looking for actual news. Unless stomping around in a half inch of snow in a parking lot to demonstrate that, yes, it's December and it snowed in Pittsburgh, and we'll send 10 reporters to 10 places in a 10-mile radius to all do the same thing ("Look! It snowed here in Canonsburg too! Over to you, Sandy!" "Snow on the ground in Washington as well, Ted. Jeff?" "We're looking at maybe 3/8 inch here in Mount Lebanon, Julie.") somehow qualifies.

BTW, yes, I'm old and yes, I'm a Luddite and yes, I'm old, but: what is bittorrent and how does it work, and where is it and do you have to sign up or pay anything?

Posted by: , at December 9, 2010 10:42 AM

It does look promising.

Also, Gavin S. try watching them in crispy clean HD. You don't miss anything.

Posted by: admin at December 9, 2010 11:29 AM

Make them have shape-shifting abilities and I think we have a movie. Just imagine the fun of shape-shifting midget albino cannibals unleashed in an underground water system.

What's the point of having the cannibals be midget albinos if they're just going to change shape the whole time? If you're going to have midget albinos in a movie, you want as much midget albino screen-time as possible.

Now, midget albino cannibals that fly, shoot lazer-beams out of their eyes, and vomit swarms of locusts -- that's something.

Posted by: superasente at December 9, 2010 12:00 PM

,:
Bittorrent is a file sharing software which, instead of having you download a file from one person like Napster or KaZaa used to, downloads the file from several different people at once.
You open the torrent file, which connects you to the people who are seeding (hosting) the file you want. It then downloads the file, pieces at a time, from all the different seeds. Makes the process much faster than the old P2P services.
The software is free, there's no website to join in order to get the Bittorrent software (although sites do ask for donations), and there are many Bittorrent knockoffs out there that may or may not harm your computer.
Google it, you should be able to find it. Happy torrenting!

Posted by: Jim Doggie at December 9, 2010 12:05 PM

I have to disagree superasente. If the entire film was shot after shot of midget albino cannibals, they would get tired fast. Imagine if The Descent was two hours of the monsters in the caverns in full light chasing the adventurers. It would go from creepy, to boring, to laughable. Shape-shifting allows for a slow reveal of the true identity of the assailants. I was suggesting the abilities be used for stealth. They could literally be anywhere and then pounce upon the victims in their true form. It could give a whole new spin to the cat scare. "Oh, it's just a caAAHHHH stop biting my neck you midget albino cannibal!!!"

Flight and locusts are an interesting twist, but laser beams would make this a slipstream film and it won't be nearly as effective. That is, of course, unless it's reshot as a steampunk fantasy about midget albino cannibals who can shape-shift, fly, shoot lasers out of their eyes, and vomit locusts. Then we're talking Best Picture material.

Posted by: Robert at December 9, 2010 1:02 PM

Is it just me Robert, or does this feel like a conversation that belongs in Troma Studios circa 1987?

Posted by: superasente at December 9, 2010 1:28 PM

1987? Troma's still cranking these puppies out now.

Posted by: Robert at December 9, 2010 5:05 PM

,

I couldn't agree more about Pittsburgh weather stories!
Go Stillers! (and Joe DeNardo)

Posted by: ; at December 9, 2010 5:46 PM

Actually, as far as news reporters not going looking for stuff, I guess it depends on what kind of TV news. I found this on youtube which looks like it may have been an inspiration:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kE7i-7sd3yg

Posted by: Jojo at December 9, 2010 7:30 PM

9 times out of 10 I've gotten viruses from torrents, so none of that for me anymore.

Posted by: Davetheman at December 9, 2010 9:44 PM

Really? I never got a virus from my many years of DLing from torrents. And I DL a LOT, since I'm from a 3rd world, excuse me, developing country. Must be lucky.

Posted by: caragwapa at December 9, 2010 10:25 PM

Me neither. Many years, many files. I always figured that it's pretty hard to virus a music or film torrent, as a) once people start to realise it's a virus not a valid dl, they just stop hosting it, so it's self limiting b) if it's not a .mp3 or .mpg/.avi then stop dl-ing it. Why have they zipped it? What's really in there?

Software and videogames are worse, and I've seen more people complain about viruses from them.

Posted by: Ender at December 10, 2010 7:55 AM

Have you tried The new Mac Video Capture program yet? Mac Video Capture

Posted by: mac capture at December 24, 2010 11:21 PM