Movie Review: Gehenna: Where Death Lives (2016)

Synopsis: A real estate developer investigating a piece of land in Saipan decides to take her crew into a World War II bunker on the property. After they are accosted by a disheveled old man, a mysterious loud noise renders them unconscious. When they wake up, they discover they have been locked in and, as they look for another exit, are tormented by an evil presence that is using their past against them.

Who's in it? The movie stars Katherine Taylor, Simon Phillips, Justin Gordon, Sean Sprawling and Matthew Edward Hegstrom.

Review: One of my biggest pet peeves about Netflix is their somewhat incomplete movie previews, which tend to make the majority of their films look a bit dull. As a result of that, when I finally decided to watch this movie with my wife last night, I wasn't really sure if we would end up liking it. As it turns out, it was actually surprisingly good.

While I did think the movie was a bit lacking in the scares department, there were quite a few things I did find I enjoyed. One of the big ones was the ongoing mystery surrounding the bunker. When Claire (Taylor) led her team into the bunker, it was obvious there was something a bit off about it, especially when they kept coming across dead bodies that obviously didn't belong to the Japanese soldiers that once occupied it. On top of it, when they woke up, the bunker looked a lot newer. Was someone pulling a prank on them or did they really travel back in time?

Something else I thought was intriguing was the way the entity made an effort to have its victims kill themselves rather than trying to kill them outright. Some of the ways it did that were actually a little creepy too, including a scene with one of the crew being tricked into strangling himself while sleeping.

I was able to take a somewhat accurate guess about how the movie would end but, even with being able to do that, I did find it was an interesting twist that left me with quite a few questions about whether or not the bunker's victims were predestined to experience their fate and whether or not it was something that was happening on a loop. If nothing else, it was a more complex ending than I was expecting from a movie like this one.

Final Opinion: As I said, I was a bit concerned about this movie because of the Netflix preview. However, I'm glad I took the chance and watched it. I would recommend it as a result.

My Grade: B