Subterano (2003) User Reviews

Too Ambitious

[NIXFLIX-DOT-COM · 5/10 · 2 September 2003]

SUBTERANO is one of those low-budget movies that is, unfortunately, too ambitious for its own good. The idea is there, along with a good premise, but the resources to carry it out isn't. So as a result we get a movie that uses the same color scheme and repetitive nature of the highly creative CUBE, which managed to sell its low-budget nature because the story dictates repetitiveness. With SUBETERANO, the repeating of garage levels is just, well, repeating garage levels.

Also, the screenplay is much too elaborate. There is a whole back story about revolution and the movie itself is supposed to take place in the future. I've always advised low-budget filmmakers to veer away from futuristic storylines for the simple reason that they don't have the resources to carry out the premise. And, as a result, their "future world" always ends up looking incredibly laughable.

SUBTERANO is not an entirely bad film. It has some good actors, but also some very irritating characters that, unfortunately, don't die off fast enough. There really is no surprise who will live or who will die, and who will end up being really irritating. In this respect, the screenplay fails.

5 out of 5

(go to www.nixflix.com for a more detailed review of this movie, including reviews of other films in this genre)

Silly Game in a Low-Budget Movie

[claudio_carvalho · 4/10 · 21 August 2005]

In a future society apparently ruled by virtual games, Conrad (Alex Dimitriades), the leader of a revolutionary group called "The Orphans of the Revolution", escapes from the guards when he was going to be executed, and with the support of his girlfriend Grace Stone (Tasma Walton), he goes to the last level of a parking garage trying to escape to a sanctuary. However, the garage is shutdown by a crazy teenager that has developed a new version of a deadly game called Subterano, and Conrad and Grace, with four teenagers, a security guard and an elder accountant have to play the game and fight to survive.

What a crap is the screenplay of this low-budget movie! Indeed it is a silly game, with no development of the characters, the place and time, and even their motives, being a complete mess. The imbecile writer uses a shallow situation, indeed a rip-off of "Logan's Run"and "The Running Man", and a director uses some computer effects and makes this movie. The good point is the beautiful unknown actress Tasma Walton, who has a good performance. In the end, if the viewer shuts-down his or her brain, it may be a watchable movie for killing time only. My vote is four.

Title (Brazil): "Subterrâneo" (Ünderground")

Awful, awful movie...

[hughie522 · 4/10 · 31 December 2005]

In Australia, a majority of films have to go through the Australian Film Finance Corporation before production. That usually means that Aussie flicks are underfunded, and Subterano is no exception. I tried to like this film. As an Aussie, I felt that I had a duty to like this film. But I couldn't. The script is terrible, the plot is unsuspenseful and you could really care less about the characters.

Sci-fi wise, Australia has had some success with 'Escape from Jupiter'. That was a children's TV series practically unheard of outside of Australia. And, in reality, Subterano is nothing more than an overbaked form of that, with little in the way of budget and creativity. Avoid this film at all costs. I remember saying that this is, without a doubt, proof that Australia should stay away from science fiction cinema. And I stand by that.

Mysteriously watchable

[Memlets · 14 February 2003]

True, the special effects are a little lame in this low budget Australian movie, and the location for most of the action -- a parking garage -- is pretty cheap.

But, darn it. I was entertained.

One thing, though: This could be a good children's movie if all the four-letter words were removed.

film lacks balls

[movieman_kev · 1/10 · 23 December 2004]

Some people are trapped in a virtual reality game that takes the form of an underground parking garage in this Australian film that was shelved for years.It's easy to see why it took so long to come out as If I bought a game like that, I'd ask for a refund. Anyway, the story's uninvolving even if the cinematography makes it look better then it probably cost. All in all a wasted hour and a half, so I can't really recommend this film to anyone. Wouldn't be surprised if this was finally released to attempt to cash in on the fact that the lead actor, Alex Dimitriades was in the much bigger budgeted, but equally abysmal "Ghost Ship"

My Grade: D

Where I Saw it: TMC extreme

"Subterano" is an awful awful movie that is a waste of time to watch, with poor characters and poor action scenes this is movie is a textbook failure.

[froglumper369 · 1/10 · 1 September 2005]

All right. I consider myself to be pretty reliable when it comes knowing a good movie from a bad one. Everyone I talk to always knows they can come to me for movie advice, and I have to say that the movie "Subterano" is possibly one of the worst movies I've ever seen.

Supposedly this movie is based on a comic book or video game or something, which is not a bad thing except for the fact that unless you have played/read the video game/comic book this movie will make absolutely no sense. I'm watching this movie and I feel as if it is some hour and a half long inside joke that only the makers of the movie are supposed to understand. I certainly did not understand this feeble attempt at a plot and I doubt that half the writers of this movie did either. Now I'm willing to look past a weak plot if the action in a movie like this is great, but again "Subterano" fails. The action in this movie is mild at best with boring enemies (which are stupid toy robot things) and pretty much cliché action scenes that you can find in any B rate action film.

Do yourself a favor and avoid this movie at all costs. The story makes no sense and the action is as boring as the characters. It's sad when the most fleshed out character in this movie is a robot villain named "Webbo" who has no speaking role and appears for probably about 20 seconds in the film. I'll tell you from personal experience this is an hour and a half of my life I'll never get back.

A film that tries to make some bold moves, but just can't pull them off...

[lemon_magic · 3/10 · 15 January 2006]

"Subterano" is so poorly and cheaply done AND so derivative that I ought to hate it outright. Threadbare plots, cardboard characters, unconvincing special effects (I especially hate the robot!!), and annoying, clichéd dialog punish the viewer in every new scene. It's as if "The Matrix" had a stroke and this is all it was able to do now instead of the brain blasting set pieces of its glory days. I would guess that the people trying to ape the Matrix in "Subterano" had 10% of the Wachowski Brothers' talent pool and 5% of their budget and resources.

However I feel so sorry for the Aussie actors trying to carry this piece of junk that I have to add another couple of stars to it just because they are obviously trying hard. DeNiro and Olivier and Russell Crowe working in concert couldn't save this one, though, and consequently you can see the actors getting a little shrill sometimes, trying to make their lines work when there is no way for that to happen. I wish all of them the best of luck and hope they found paying work after this.

To put this in perspective, this wouldn't be out of place on a Sci Fi movie channel marathon among such sausage products as "DinoCroc", "Boa Vs Python", and "Death Octopus III" (OK, I made that last one up, but you know what I mean). I can't imagine anyone feeling that this was worth the money or time to watch it unless they were either a)die-hard fans of cheesy sci fi films or b) die hard patrons of the Australian film industry. Don't laugh - I am sure they exist, and there are plenty of great, under-appreciated film gems out of OZ that deserve wider exposure and commercial success in the US.

This isn't one of then, though. If you don't fall into either of those camps, you should avoid "Subterano".

This movie gives underground parking garages a bad name.

[Craig_Boehman · 1/10 · 16 June 2005]

Once in a while I can pick up a pretty decent movie in the "previously viewed" category at my local video store. Subterano was listed at $1.99 on VHS. There wasn't anything in the new releases I wanted to see, so I thought, what the heck. Little did I know the horrors that awaited me in an underground parking garage. A major bore. While some may find gimmicky, little evil robots killing cardboard characters amusing, or worse, even cute, I couldn't stomach the banality of what could have been more invigorating concept. I was on the edge of my seat, the very edge, waiting for the story to somehow elevate itself from the urban depths. But it was not to be. It's all in the title, after all. This story was to play out in a parking garage and I'd have to just grit my teeth and hope there was going to be something decent on PBS afterwards to restore my faith in mankind.

Go Watch a Parking Garage...

[monthenor · 1/10 · 18 April 2003]

***MINOR SPOILERS***

Go find a nice five-story parking garage in your local big city. Sit down in a parking spot around 5AM and wait for something to happen.

Now you have an idea of what "Subterano" has to offer.

I'll deal with the one positive aspect of the film right away: the CG is good for what it does. The movie is about virtual reality come to life, but there is blessedly little occasion for over-the-top cheesy CG. The enemies are constructed from little reflective nanite spheres, and the scenes which show these spheres flying around and melting together are actually pretty well done.

In fact, there's only one thing really wrong with this movie: the movie. It's set almost entirely in a parking garage...IN THE FUTURE!! Every "level" of the deadly game thus looks exactly the same as the last, excepting the horrid pervasive lighting. If there's one thing that real-life game developers have discovered, it's that irritating purple and yellow lights can't hide the flaws in your game. The lighting here only serves to accentuate the fact that there's no actual movie.

The actors' lines sound like they were recorded from across a parking garage. While appropriate to the theme of the movie, it makes it difficult to decipher what little is going on. When the characters get scared and start screaming/babbling it is impossible to tell what they're saying, and unfortunately some important plot development must have gotten lost in one of these scenes because there is NO help for the audience after the first fifteen minutes.

Subterano also seems to have some aspects of 1984 thrown in, but I could never be sure.

A big fat 1 from me. You're better off watching a Sci-Fi Original on a worn out videotape.

Really Fitting Title For This Movie...

[cchase · 6/10 · 5 September 2005]

...since all of the originality this script needed really IS "buried!" At least it is another opportunity to see the chiseled talent of Alex Dimitriades at work, though a bit of a letdown after his career-making performance in the searing indie HEAD ON.

Set in a future where VR video games aren't just a way of life, but have infused nearly every aspect of pop culture, (in other words, not all that different from today), Dimitriades plays one of the underground rebels of a faction known as the "Orphans Of The Revolution." It all gets kind of "JUDGE DREDD-meets-THE-MATRIX" from here, so I'll just skim over what passes for the "finer points." Having escaped an execution date with the help of an old flame (Tasma Walton), both renegades find themselves in the wrong place at a VERY wrong time, trapped in the parking deck of a high-rise with several other unlucky people.

Because living in this high-rise is the part-time sociopath/full-time "daddy's boy" who has just perfected a VR game called...you guessed it, SUBTERANO. Sonny has one of those dysfunctional relationships with his dad, and therefore has channeled all his hate, frustration and aggression into a game that has now transcended its VR origins and become part of the real world...and the captives in the parking deck must now play for their lives, or suffer the deadly consequences.

It certainly sounds more interesting than it is, and it isn't hard to believe that it actually sat on a shelf two years after its completion. I always wondered how movies would begin to reflect the tech advances in special effects achieved with THE MATRIX, and in its own just-okay CGI work, SUBTERANO reflects the very beginnings of the beneficial influences reaped by low-budget projects from the much superior forerunner.

Unlike CUBE, to which SUBTERANO bears more than just a passing resemblance, the characterizations are not as fully realized, so to the actors' credit they do at least manage to keep us interested before the "game" dispatches most of them. The dialogue at best never rises above soap-opera level, which makes one wonder how much time was spent on the script development as opposed to the special FX (which obviously gobbled up most of the film's meager budget.) Once you get past the somewhat tedious set-up in the first third of the movie, SUBTERANO does get curiously watchable afterward. A few trims here and there would probably make it more palatable for kids with a PG-13 sensibility. As it is, it's a fairly harmless piece of late-night fodder when nothing else is on.

(Note to Alex and Tasma: fire your agents and get new ones.)

Kid-charged, lame game within a movie, movie...

[dwpollar · 3/10 · 20 February 2003]

1st watched 2/20/2003 - 3 out of 10(Dir-Mort S. Seben): Kid-charged, lame game within a movie, movie that's played out in a parking garage(and it's supposed to be virtual reality?). What I mean by kid-charged is that this movie plays to the video game fanatic and the young-set even though it's Rated `R' and they're not even supposed to be watching(Yeah, right.). The best part of this movie is the special effects in the last 15 minutes. The rest is about little toy robots with bad mouths chasing down and killing people in a parking garage until, of course, the end of the game, when somebody has to come out alive or their wouldn't be a player. I'm sure this was a big hit in Australia and that's why we get to pick it up at our local video store and get shafted by another teen flick with plenty of violence, sexual innuendoes, and more violence. Okay, I guess you can tell I didn't like this. Well, your right. Even our kids deserve better than this.

Decent entry, if not overtly spectacular

[slayrrr666 · 8/10 · 13 April 2009]

"Subterano" is a rather nice and somewhat enjoyable slasher entry.

**SPOILERS**

Developing a new computer game, Todd Cunningham, (Nikolai Nikolaeff) is unable to get his father Mr. Cunningham, (Shane Briant) out to see it despite promises of doing so. Inviting along friends Angie, (Kate Sherman) Max, (Scott Swalwell) Slick, (Jason Stojanovski) and Monkey, (Veronica Segura) they head out to a nearby apartment complex to check it out, only to realize they're trapped with Conrad, (Alex Dimitriades) Grace Stone, (Tasma Walton) Ian Cleary, (Chris Heywood) and Elaine, (Anne Tenney) in the facility. Forced to wander the sub-levels of the building, they soon realize they're being forced to play the game Subterano, a popular game where they're forced to battle several mechanical toys that are killing them off, and they have to fight back in order to survive the deadly game.

The Good News: This one wasn't that bad and was pretty interesting. The main factor here, and what gives it many good points is the way it uses the rather fun concept. Having killer toys from a video-game hunt down stranded victims in a parking garage, as a recreation of the game, is a lot of fun, really inventive and manages to earn some great points for the film. The first is the unique concept, and another is the really cool special effects for the toys. There's different ones in here, and each of them are nicely designed, unique-looking to tell them all apart and even manage a cool visual trick now and then. They play a big part of the great-looking effects overall, and along with the computer simulations for everything manage to help out enormously. They also make the confrontations really fun as well. There's two main types in here, the creepy kind or the straight-up action kind. The first confrontation in the walkway and the encounter with the scorpion-version are played for suspense and work well-enough, putting into motion the sense of what's going to happen before they do rather nicely. As well, the chase with the exploding cars and the discotheque sequences are done for pure action and they are incredibly exciting and exhilarating, coming off as rather enjoyable. The final confrontation within the darkened structure has a healthy combination of both, mixing a really healthy amount of suspense and action to an incredible scene. It's an extended fight, allowing plenty of opportunities for some god times as it rolls along. The last plus to this one is the rather nice and violent kills on display. There's a brutal stabbing in the throat with a knife, a needle drilled into the head, one is set on fire, wire rope is tied around the ankles and both feet cut off, a rather nice slicing done with a metal wire and a rather nice decapitation, among others. Not the greatest set, but certainly enjoyable enough. These here are the film's best points.

The Bad News: There wasn't a whole lot of flaws to this one. One of the biggest issues is that the film has an absolutely convoluted and confusing story, since there's an incredible amount of sub-plots that run through it. There's at least four main stories in here that are documented, each getting their own introduction that takes up at least five minutes or more, meaning that there's several scenes that are there mainly to bring up the specific plot before being shuttled off for something else. It just makes the whole thing incredibly disjointed and very hard to get through. The only other big flaw here is the fact that the film decides to explain a lot of the situations through a lot of video-game jargon, meaning that, often-times, something comes off as far more confusing than it should be. It could very well have been an adequate explanation for what was happening, but the use of the special language not many are familiar with can become a hurdle. These here are all that's really wrong with it.

The Final Verdict: Nowhere near the worst slasher of all time, but if thought about for too long, it does tend to drag the film down. Really recommended for those who are intrigued by the concept or can get through a film without being bothered by the flaws, but that's of major importance to you, heed caution with this one.

Rated R: Graphic Violence, Graphic Language and Brief Nudity

Great bargain bin find!

[Vampenguin · 7/10 · 11 March 2006]

This has been sitting on my shelf gathering dust for months, so I figured I might as well watch it. I got it for $3 in a bargain bin, so I wasn't expecting much at all, but I got a rather pleasant surprise! Sure, it's not a great movie by any means, full of plot hole and continuity problems, but the actors were actually pretty good for a low budget flick like this. Same goes for the effects. The plot wasn't anything we haven't seen before, but it was handled well. I was pretty disappointed with the "Embo Man" villain in the end....looked like a bad Power Ranger villain. Oh well, it was still a lot better than expected for $3!

7/10

almost a good movie...gotta love Kate Sherman

[KHayes666 · 5/10 · 29 May 2005]

I wanted to like this movie because of the character Conrad, Kate Sherman's ass and the overall plot. I mean speaking for myself, I always dreamt about getting caught in a video game and using your wits...but if I did that I would have ended up like Slick in the movie.

This movie was almost good because the plot is really interesting but the follow through was lame. The plot is a convicted killer named Conrad and his ex are trapped in a real life video game meant for friends of a rich boy. Its up to Conrad to save the kids from impending doom. The acting sometimes was laughable but Kate Sheman's moon job had my eyes on her the rest of the movie. The ending was rather lame because of the whole reset button idea but considering how this movie was a mess to begin with.

Barely anyone takes video games that come to life seriously so this movie had to be well thought out and have great acting, too bad it fell short on both ends.

Almost......5 out of 10

"God made man in his image.if man is a sinner,what does that say about his God"?

[disdressed12 · 3/10 · 28 November 2007]

good question.but a more important question would be---how and why was this film ever allowed to be made?this thing is a real stinker.there's no discernible plot and it seems to me like they were just making things up as they went.i felt like i was watching a sit-com-and i don't mean that in any good way.the acting is atrocious.i could swear this was supposed to be a horror movie.the horror is that it got made.this ranks in one of the worst movies i have ever seen.but believe it or not,there are maybe 5 or 6 that are worse.the only thing good i can say about this movie is it had women with an Australian accent.that's not saying much,but for me,it elevates the movie to 3/10

Mildly amusing piece of trash.

[Sir_James_the_Cat · 3/10 · 10 January 2006]

I happened upon this movie as a filler on New Year's Eve before the fireworks. Sitting around with my family, we watched in amazement as the ridiculous events unfolded. While the plot does seem sort of interesting at first, it is carried out so poorly that all you can do is laugh.

The dialogue is worse than soap opera standard. It seems at some points the actors decided they would ad-lib, with terrible results. At least I hope they were ad-libbing. The last words of one of the characters as she is shot in the groin by a poorly animated laser is not to be missed.

The entire budget was obviously blown on the special effects, which isn't saying much. The most expensive would have been "emboman," the climactic villain of Subterano, a monster who resembles a creature from the old Power Rangers series.

Maybe if I was still 4 years old I would like this movie, (which was based on the true story of a woman who was chased through an underground car park in Surfers Paradise.) But I'm not 4, and neither is this movie. It's 3 / 10, just for novelty value.

This is a bad movie that I'd recommend skipping

[kevin_robbins · 3/10 · 27 January 2023]

Subterano (2003) is an Australian movie that I recently found on Tubi. The storyline follows eleven strangers who find themselves randomly in a car garage. They don't know how they got there but as they start investigating their surroundings they discover robots, creatures and people from the future that wants to kill them. Is there any hope for escape and getting back home?

This movie is written and directed by Esben Storm (Deadly) and stars Alex Dimitriades (Ghost Ship), Tasma Walton (Mystery Road), Alison Whyte (Satisfaction), Janet Edwards (Smokin Aces) and Jason Stojanovski (Beat).

This movie is wild and I couldn't tell if it was purposely trying to be a "so bad it's good" project or not. The action sequences are very uneven as are the kill scenes. There's a couple scenes that made me smile, but for the most part there's nothing special here. Some of the costumes and technology depictions were cool and the ID opening was hilarious. The aciting was very mediocre and the villain at the end was awful and entertaining at the same time.

Overall, this is a bad movie that I'd recommend skipping. I'd score this a 3/10.

Utterly terrible on all levels

[newslaws · 1/10 · 7 January 2006]

Terrible script. Mostly terrible performances, Alex Dimitriades and Tasma Walton did about the best they could with the script. All the characters were one dimensional clichés (and mostly really, really stupid). The action was rather poor, the special effects unconvincing, the characters annoying. Costuming that would largely have been rejected from cheap 70s science fiction shows as "too tacky". Oh, and if you're going to base a movie around an idea for a video game it would be an idea to have some idea of what makes for reasonable gameplay. This is a movie that deserves to be in the IMDb bottom 100, in fact I'm struggling to think of a worse movie ever...

Fun, action-packed sci-fi thriller

[willywants · 7/10 · 19 June 2005]

Eleven people are trapped in an underground parking lot, where they must battle their way through it against lethal toys in a real-life virtual-reality game. I rented "Subterano" for no reason in particular, having never read anything about it but passing it hundreds of times on the video store shelf (Lets just say I have a lot of free time on my hands), but upon checking IMDb after renting it I found predominately poor reviews. Perhaps it was because I didn't expect much, I thoroughly enjoyed "Subterano". It may owe one-too-many nods to 1997's brilliant "Cube", and the futuristic clothing may be pretty silly, but there's plenty to like here.

For a low-budget movie, writer/director Esben Storm has done a great job with the film visually. Despite being filmed almost exclusively in a parking lot, the lighting is interesting and attractive (Lots of filters are used in this film to good effect) and there's enough tense action that thing never get boring.

The acting is surprisingly good for the most part, John Clayton and Alex Dimitriades being the best here. Everyone else is good too, but some of the characters could be rather annoying at times (The baby-faced teen girl being a prime example).

The special effects are good. Most direct-to-video films resort to cartoony and unconvincing CG, but here the computer effects are actually quite good, and there are some fun, gruesome death scenes (I'm not going to give them away) here and there. Thankfully, the gore isn't CG.

It's not a perfect film by any means, the script can be thin in places and the music is terrible at times, but "Subterano" was a fun, fast-paced sci-fi thriller that's certainly a stones-throw ahead of the brainless, CGI-laden "sci-fi" films produced by Hollywood these days. Give it a chance and you might like it.

6.5/10.

A scifi reviewer

[budthechud · 9/10 · 28 January 2003]

Just saw a Great Scifi movie..Its called Subterano.. This movie's plot was virtual reality in actual reality.. A wierd collection of people have been trapped in a underground car park. There is a killer/good guy, a sexy babe as his ex wife, a group of cyber punks, a security guard babe and a old computer nerd bum. These ppl are forced to play a game of Subterano.. Subterano is a virtual reality game, but the son of the inventor of the game snaps and forces theses people to play a real life game with him only in virtual reality.. This son has some weird devices he can control in virtual reality to hunt down these people in actual reality. If you have ever seen the movie The Cube this movie is up to that level in quality. Basicly these people have to movie from level to level in the game.. With out giving out too much information and ruining the plot

An underrated unexpected film

[ss1976-599-581288 · 7/10 · 6 February 2013]

I have just had the pleasure of watching this and then thought I would read the reviews and I was quite shocked at all the negativity anyway my verdict girlie's is this.

If you have a couple of hours to spend and want to watch something that is different you can't go wrong with this. I won't lie the first 25-30 minutes were like please turn it off this is so boring but I didn't and what followed was unexpected I found I was actually enjoying it there are quite a few scenes of gore and each one is different the spiders web part was very good almost hellraiserish and you could tell that the person who envisioned this likes phantasm and maybe had also watched chopping mall if you get the chance to see it please do and bear with it it is better than some films of today and I shall watch it again in a few years I would also watch part 2 if it was made.

Thanks

Pleasantly Different (Plot Spoilers)

[mwendel · 8/10 · 31 January 2003]

Its a good sci-fi movie with a different feel to it. Its not a movie that's going to blow you away, but I think will leave the fan satisfied.

Its all about virtual reality gone too far in a society that seems to be a futuristic modern age "controlled" society like in 1984 or Equilibrium where the media is constantly broadcasting propaganda and everyone is eating it up like candy.

Good special effects, nothing too over the top. Its well done enough not to be what I think most sci-fi fans would deem too cheesy.

There could have been a little more detail about the background and history of the city in which the characters live in, since it plays a major role in who everyone is and how they ended up "on location". But, enough is given so that you don't sit there scratching your head wondering what is really going on.

All in all I really enjoyed this film and felt it had a very different feel to it than most of the movies I have viewed recently.

Subterano film

[drymanneldred-80146 · 10/10 · 8 May 2019]

I rather enjoyed this film.Love seeing people killed by toys,,Needs to be shown on Hulu or Shudder..

I have seen bad, but this is worst

[MrJay · 28 February 2003]

Seriously!

Sometimes i just get the feeling that the whole movie industry is after my mental health. Someone could ask why? well the aswer is really simple > movies like SUBTERANO. When "wannabe" sci-fi flicks go bad this is a good sample what happens, totally lost script, bad acting, bad catch, bad cpu animations, bad sounds, and last, but not least bad atmosphere.

I do not recommend this movie nor will i ever say it is good, i will simply poke my eyes blind next time i even hear someone say "subterano", i mean HOW BAD CAN MOVIES GET REALLY?