Reed Alexander's Horror Review of 'Deathwatch' (2002)

Can we just talk about the fucking atmosphere in this movie? It's got every bit as much grit as 1917 (2019), Saving Private Ryan (1998), Enemy at the Gate (2001), and Dunkirk (2017). Honestly, this movie was every bit as good as those, but it's never going to get the credit it deserves because it's horror. Big awards never take horror seriously and that's a fucking tragedy. You can really feel this movie, hell, you can fucking smell it. It's an atmosphere you can cut with a fucking knife. It's not quite picturesque like The Lighthouse (2019), or The VVitch (2015), but that's seriously hard to pull off and there's a reason why only Robbert Eggers can do that so consistently. He's one of a kind. But this movie did come close.

There are points when the practical FX don't quite live up to the atmosphere, and there is some CGI that doesn't quite live up to the setting, but for the most part, everything was done right. It is a budget film and they did an absolutely marvelous job with what they had to work with.

The acting is also fantastic for a small production. There's a scene when the Captain, played by actor Laurence Foxs, just absolutely loses his mind, and he sells the shock he's experiencing in spades. It definitely deserves an award. Basically, without going into the spoilers, once everything hits a crescendo, his mind snaps and he falls into almost a robotic-like regimental, disciplinarian, role. His mind can't handle what's going on so it reverts to commanding perfection in order to cope. That's just fucking amazing acting right there. Not to mention amazing writing. The other actors really do a marvelous job too, but the Captain nails it. He's also kind of a tertiary antagonist. The character is just completely out of his depth from the get-go and his refusal to accept it is basically what gets everyone killed. The secondary antagonist, Pvt. Thomas Quin, is also pretty good, but doesn't have nearly as much depth. He's pretty tropey, over all, not that it's a bad thing, but the Captain just knocks it out of the park. In case you were wondering, the trench itself is the primary antagonist.

I highly recommend this one, I'm calling it a must-see. The British and the Australians were kicking ass in the horror industry back in the early 2000s' when America was turning out trash. And they were doing it with a much smaller budget.

That, in of itself deserves praise but this movie is a gem and stands on its own aside from that fact.

SPOILERS!!!

Though, not really. You can pretty easily guess that the troops of Company F are already dead. If you do, it doesn't really matter, it's a great story all the same.

It's a quick descent into madness for Company F. The forward trench they take starts to have some fairly horrific effects on them and their psyche and some particularly gruesome ways of killing them.

Though it should be said, by the end tole, the trench really only kills about 3 of them, and rather convinces the rest to kill each other.

One of the fascinating things about the story is that the morals suggested by the trench are fairly grey. If you murder someone, it eats you, if you abandon your post to avoid murdering, it eats you, if you beat off to some nudies collected on a fallen German soldier, it eats you, if you torture your prisoners of war, it eats you, but if you allow the prisoner to be tortured, it eats you unless you make nice with the prisoner afterward. It's also oddly forgiving of the one time the main protagonist could have saved someone by necessary murder, and instead fails to do so, which to me is a horrific act of cowardice. It was cool with the mercy killing though... go figure.

Anyway, it was a great description of the horrors of war and, while it was a tired overused plot, it was still executed well in a way that was not at all boring. I can compare it to "Silent Hill" with better acting and better immersion. No pyramid head though. Sorry...