The Bunker Game (2022)

March 19, 2022 12:30 PM

After several mysterious accidents, a Live Action Role Playing game is interrupted and the players leave the bunker while the staff remains behind to investigate the disappearance of Greg, the mastermind of the game.

Streaming in the US on Shudder.

posted by DirtyOldTown (9 comments total)

So there's this high end group of LARPers

Ok.

And they've got this huge, enormous scale LARP going with an alternate history thing and they're in a bunker after a nuclear war

Sounds interesting, okay.

And in this history the Nazis won WWII and took over the world--

They're LARPing as Nazis?

Yes, but--

I don't give a fuck.

There's more to it than that though, there are people of color LARPing, queer people LARPing outside their assigned-at-birth gender--

As Nazis? I don't give a fuck.

But the visuals are--

Don't give a fuck.

But it's also a horror movie and some of them are gonna--

[Does four minute musical number with fireworks, choreography, and a 28 piece band]

♫♫ I don't give a fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck! ♫♫

[JAZZ HANDS]
posted by DirtyOldTown at 12:35 PM on March 19, 2022 [10 favorites]

Ha, thanks for the heads up!
posted by ejs at 1:12 PM on March 19, 2022

I get your not giving a fuck, DOT, but... you posted the thread on Fanfare?
posted by Ursula Hitler at 2:07 PM on March 19, 2022 [1 favorite]

As a friendly warning, yeah.

That was not a real convo above, btw. Wish it had been. The reality is I spent a half hour-ish sussing this out and even after turning it off early, I am still mad.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 2:15 PM on March 19, 2022 [4 favorites]

Does the Nazi thing end up really being part of the plot? I was curious enough about this movie to read some reviews (but not curious enough to actually watch it) and the reviewers barely mentioned the Nazi aspect. It seems like a really loaded choice to make the characters take part in a Nazi roleplaying game, and I'm curious how the film deals with that.
posted by Ursula Hitler at 1:58 PM on March 20, 2022 [1 favorite]

It eventually becomes a sort of haunted house movie. Them being (playing as) Nazis is sort of incidental, which somehow comes across even worse. Even if a person forgave the Nazi thing, the subsequent story is... boring.

It's not just me who hated it by the way. As of this post, it has a 1.9 average rating on Letterboxd. The most recent reviews are, in order: 2/5, 1/5, 1/5, 1/5, 2.5/5, 1.5/5, 1.5/5, 1/5, 0.5/5, 0.5/5, 1.5/5, 0.5/5 , 0.5/5.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 2:12 PM on March 20, 2022

So I didn't see your warning and just finished watching it. The film makes zero sense including that the nazi aspect is necessary for the plot to "work." Honestly 2/5 is high for this film, and I'm pretty easily entertained.
posted by miss-lapin at 6:40 PM on March 20, 2022

If anyone wants a more in-depth review, this one from Paste is pretty good. It gives the film a bit more credit than I did for its (admittedly impressive) cinematography and production design, but still notes that virtually none of its world building pays off, it fails as a horror film, and there never is any commentary/insight on the characters LARPing as Nazis.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 6:59 AM on March 22, 2022

Supporting characters remark about dying for their portrayal of Nazis—genre rigidity sidesteps a much more extensive discussion

So it sounds like the filmmakers were going for the Indian Burial Ground trope, the deal where modern people have no respect for something from the past and then they get punished for it. These characters were treating fascism like a game, and then they start seeing ghosts from the occupation. Maybe it didn't land, but I think that was the intention.

I'm well aware of the weirdness of my commenting on this stuff, given my name. Ugh, at this point my name is just this whole thing.
posted by Ursula Hitler at 2:19 PM on March 22, 2022 [1 favorite]