The War Below (2021)

The War Below finds something genuinely fresh in World War I cinema by going underground, turning the familiar horror of the trenches into a tense, claustrophobic fight waged in darkness and dirt. J.P. Watts makes the miners’ world feel tactile and immediate, and Sam Hazeldine anchors it with a grounded, gritty performance that sells both the courage and the exhaustion without grandstanding. Working smartly within a modest budget, the film leans into atmosphere—creaking beams, tight passages, and the slow build of dread—so the suspense comes from proximity and pressure rather than spectacle. It’s not the sweeping, battlefield-forward war epic some viewers may want, and it can be grim, but if you’re on the fence, this is the kind of true-story drama that earns your attention by showing you a side of the war you’ve rarely seen.

The War Below is clearly aiming to shine a light on a lesser-known, genuinely harrowing corner of WWI, and the tunnelling premise has built-in tension that occasionally lands. The problem is it often feels like it’s sprinting through what should be a slow-burn pressure cooker, with thin character work and rushed pacing that make the danger feel more “reported” than deeply felt. The class-friction and technical specifics of the mining operation are touched on but not explored enough to give the story real weight, so the stakes can seem oddly flat for something this deadly. If you want a gritty, immersive war drama with rich personalities and meticulous detail, you may leave disappointed; if you’re okay with a modest, workmanlike historical film that hints at bigger themes without fully digging into them, it’s passable.