The Chamber, 2016
Written and directed by Ben Parker
Starring Johannes Kuhnke, Charlotte Salt, Elliot Levey, Christian Hillborg
SYNOPSIS:
A claustrophobic survival thriller set beneath the Yellow Sea off the coast of North Korea where the pilot of a small submersible craft and a three man Special Ops team on a secret recovery mission become trapped underwater in a fight for survival.
Imagine being in a tin can the size of a sofa at the bottom of the Yellow Sea. Now imagine you don’t even know why you’re there. Got that? Well now imagine the hull has been breached and you’re taking in water at an alarming rate. Congrats, now you know how it feels to be like Mat in Ben Parker’s claustrophobic horror The Chamber.
As displayed in many other films before this, filming in one location – a very small location at that – can be very tricky when trying to keep things visually interesting. There’s only so much coverage one can shoot, and there is only so many times you can use the same tension building techniques before the whole thing feels bland. Parker manages to get the best out of his location, even to the point where it feels like he doesn’t shoot every inch of his confined space. The majority of the film is shot in close-up on the actors, but Parker gets even tighter when the tension ramps, which you can imagine happens an awful lot.
Although the tension aspect of The Chamber is one of its issues. Parker’s script is very well researched and features an incredible level of detail about submarine procedures (which really helps with immersion), but a lot of the dialogue feels samey. You’ll have a scene where Mat is asking his American crew why they’re going to the bottom of the ocean and they don’t tell him, and then a few moments later you have that same sequence repeated because Mat still wants to know. When things to start to go wrong, Elliot Levey is desperate to get back to the surface, but all of his lines of reasoning are the same each and every time. The Chamber never feels repetitive in its tension, but its dialogue sure can be.
Thankfully that dialogue is being read and delivered by complete pros. Charlotte Salt is really great as the strict female in charge Red, and her American accent is incredibly believable. It’s also nice to see a female character on screen in a position in charge, and isn’t being undermined because of her gender. There are moments where this happens, but they’re used as character moments for her rather than just putting heat onto someone else. Salt uses this to her advantage, and pulls out a really sterling performance. Elliot Levey and Christian Hillborg do fine in their supporting roles, but neither are given anything substantial to bite into, which is a real shame considering there are only four principal characters. And while Salt is clearly the star of the show, she’s countered brilliantly by Johannes Kuhnke’s Mat. He’s subtlety and subdued nature in the early goings is then exploded upon when everything starts going wrong. He’s cool and calm, but also feels like he could be a loose cannon at any point.
Parker also achieves greatly in setting up tension, and ramping it up to the nth degree. One could nitpick and argue that there isn’t enough time given to the actual horror part of this horrific scenario, and it’s true that more time could have been spent seeing the characters adjust to their new surroundings rather than just panic at every turn. However Parker’s script and direction keeps the audience on their toes, and there is never a dull moment in The Chamber.
Due for release in the UK this December, The Chamber is a throwback to the claustrophobic natural horrors of the 1980s and 1990s like Armageddon and The Core. Films like this don’t exist in the 21st century, but Ben Parker has tapped into a simple fear and extrapolated that very successfully. It’s far from perfect and you’d be hard pushed to say it’s ‘awesome’, but The Chamber is very, very good.
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★ ★
Luke Owen is the Deputy Editor of Flickering Myth and the co-host of The Flickering Myth Podcast and Scooperhero News. You can follow him on Twitter @ThisisLukeOwen and read his weekly feature The Week in Star Wars.
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Originally published August 26, 2016. Updated November 29, 2022.
