Looking Back at The Fellowship of the Ring

Can you even believe it? This year The Fellowship of the Ring will be ten years old! Ten years always seem to be a milestone for a movie. And me, being now somewhere between young and old, I don't have a whole lot of movies that I have consumed in a really aware way that are now ten years old. I remember that it blew my mind a little when I realised a while ago that The Matrix is now twelve years old. Little by little our beloved movies become movie-legends. And looking back at The Fellowship of the Ring one can definitely say that this movie has become a legend among movies!

It was only last week that I finally got the Special Extended Edition of The Fellowship of the Ring on DVD. I had never seen it before but since I have become a real fan of audio commentaries and Behind the Scenes features, I thought a big 4 DVD bundle was just the thing I needed. Watching the bonus stuff really is amazing. The Behind the Scenes features of The Fellowship of the Ring give you EVERYTHING! For example I really enjoyed the feature about the costumes since they actually showed you everything, every layer, every detail of the outfits! That's the kind of stuff that a costumer wants to see and they are just handing it to you on a silver platter. The bonus features of the DVD are really made for fans. They know what fans want and they are giving us exactly that.

But another thing was conveyed in a great way in the bonus features of the DVD and that is the large scale of the project of Lord of the Rings. Nowadays, having been in the position of organising something, and the large amount of planning and paperwork behind virtually anything, I can really appreciate the effort that everyone involved put into this. It almost seems to me like a miracle that a huge project like that ever came into being. How many Hobbit ears and Hobbit feet were made, how many weapons and pieces of armour had to be crafted, how many miniatures were made, how many locations had to be prepared and then all the paperwork behind everything involved. When people think about Behind the Scenes features, they mainly think about the actors but I really appreciate that those bonus features show you a lot of the people who really work behind the scenes to bring a great project to life. And another thing that remains unbelievable to me to this day is the fact that a studio had enough faith in Peter Jackson to direct these three movies and make everything work out. This is why we don't get a masterpiece like the The Lord of the Rings trilogy every year or so, because studios tend to be highly distrustful. Many extraordinary projects might be too much of a gamble and thus we have to wade through the same dumb and annoying action/comedy/thriller movies every year, which will never become anything great but are at least trusted to gain back the production and advertising costs again. And then you have people like Shyamalan who gain the trust of a studio and a big budget and turn it into pure shit. You're making everyone look really bad here, Shyamalan!

Watching The Fellowship of the Ring now, ten years later does reveal some of the CGI effects that were used. CGI people in certain longshot scenes are easy to identify or for example the cave troll has lost some of its greatness. But considering the fact that this has been ten years, they still hold up amazingly. If you compare it to the CGI of for example Narnia today, it's masterfully done. Furthermore, The Fellowship of the Ring did really great in trying their best to only rely on CGI when it was necessary. The miniatures that they built and filmed still show up beautifully in the movie and shine as a light of quality. The false perspective shots were a great and timeless idea and naturally they still work perfectly in the movie today. And of course one has to respect all the marvellous work that was done with prosthetics and costumes. Those won't age over time, unlike maybe a Davey Jones that was completely created in CGI.

This is also something that still makes me wonder about my own perception as a viewer. When we first see these movies, we think their CGI effects are great! Same goes for games. I remember how Morrowind was a really beautiful looking game, or hell, Final Fantasy VII had the best graphics of its time. How does our perception change little by little so that we can make out the fakeness of the effects when we haven't been able to make it out before? It's still a bit of a mystery to me but due to that fact I think most movies do best not using excessive amounts of CGI.

The Fellowship of the Ring probably still remains my favourite from the trilogy until this day. It might be silly, but I prefer its largely warm beautiful colours to the bleak greys of the next two movies. I also prefer its little journey of adventure to the big battles that were fought in the last two movies. Of course those movies are good too, but for some reason I just like to rewatch the first movie the most. It seems that this is a sentiment shared by a lot of people. And having now finally watched the extended edition of it as well I can say that it really is better than the cinema version. It's sad that four hour movies are pretty much unmarketable but it's great that all the missing material is made available to us through DVD.

Even ten years down the road, The Fellowship of the Ring remains a really good movie. Rewatching it gives one a feeling of anticipation for The Hobbit movie(s) which will start filming next month!

RIFT: First Impressions

One of the nicer things I brought home from Gamescom last year was a RIFT beta key. I registered quickly but it took a long time until I heard back from them, so I thought they had forgotten me after all. Some time ago however, I finally received the actual beta invitation and could try out the game.

It is a bit difficult to say anything about this game when I'm not really a player of MMOs at all. The last MMO I played? Ragnarök Online! I never played any MMO of the 3d kind, so navigating my character and especially selecting the enemies was challenging at first. I really liked the way the characters looked. They all had such broad hips and broad shoulders, at first it really threw me off but then I grew to like it. Until I took a screenshot and looked at it outside of the game. Turns out: My resolution ingame was a bit stretched and made everything look broader than it was. But strangely, I found this deviation from tall and slender characters, especially females, really refreshing! Oh well!

The gameplay was fun enough; even questing takes a rather intuitive route and you never really feel forced to do anything, which lets you play on and on for hours, obviously. What really impressed me was the wealth of different combination possibilities for your character's skilltrees. I can't even begin to think up which combinations I'd still want to try. So if you start a new character, you never feel like you are "stuck with them", because once you get bored you can choose new ways to skill your character and play them entirely differently! Lots of fun.

The implementation of rifts that suddenly open in the countryside is well thought out and carried out in a very atmospheric way as well. The countryside itself looks really nice, too. I still prefer Oblivion's graphics but that was a single player game. Imagine a near Oblivion-pretty world in an MMO game, that's really something!

Now onto the bad sides I guess, but those aren't really the games' fault at all. It's the players. Granted, you can turn a page in the chat or turn it off altogether but if you are looking for a group you can't help but have to endure the conversations of people ingame. My server was mostly filled with players that constantly talked about World of Warcraft and compared the two games. There is something about the random chatter of MMO people that annoys me. The tone of the conversation is always derogatory, it all serves the single objective to compare e-peens and it seems like people are always looking for fights.

I also realised that people like me probably aren't the target group of the game at all. I at least know my fair share of MMO terminology and thus I can fufill basic group functions but most of these people seemed to be permanent MMO players for whom this was just a different software to carry out their standard way of clicking. That is also a thing that will probably keep myself from playing the game when it comes out. I just don't feel like dealing with rude people like that, who seem to be navigating a whole different world than I am. If it means never getting ahead in an MMO and staying low-level then I'd rather do that than making my way through a dungeon with a group of rude guys for hours.

Even so, having to deal with very frustrating people, the game kept me interested enough to keep playing for hours on end. I don't really know how to write a review for an MMO since I am so obviously not accustomed to all their quirks and unwritten laws, so all I can do is give my view as an unfamiliar person. If you've never played an MMO before and you try to play any MMO you will probably get yelled at at first. Maybe if you can find a group of friends to show you the ropes you will be lucky but with so many MMOs out there and MMOs having developed into their own little niche kind of games, extremely different from the singleplayer RPGS that they once came forth from, it would always be tough to find your way into the system.

Rift at least is a new game where perhaps the minds of people aren't set into stone all that deeply and even for me it was really fun at times. I guess it would be a good choice to try out. For now, having played the game so intensely for the last three days I guess I can say I will never become an MMO player. There seems to be too much to learn just to have a little bit of fun. When the beta ends I think I will just go back to putting up with rude people in League of Legends. At least in League of Legends I can really kick ass if I'm lucky. In the end my overall impression of Rift is a highly positive one, while my impression of the players is an overwhelmingly negative one.

Recommendation: A Year in the Life of J. K. Rowling

If you are about the same age as me (I was born in 1987) chances are that you are part of the Harry Potter generation! Clearly, most young people who enjoy the Harry Potter books could be called "the Harry Potter generation" but maybe there is something special about starting to read the book series when you are 11 years old, just as the main protagonist.

So for people like me around the world it is undeniable: the Harry Potter saga is coming to an end. It already did end in a way when the last book was released. No more midnight release parties! No more avoiding the internet for a few days before the book launch to not be spoiled by ominous carpet books. No more finding five different fan-written versions of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix online. Oh well, back when the last book came out I told myself: There will still be the movies.

Now that the last movie is due out this summer (THIS SUMMER!) there won't be much of anything out afterwards. Yes, I am hoping for J. K. Rowling to write that encyclopedia or maybe some cute book like "Hogwarts, a History" much in the same way in which she wrote Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them and Quidditch through the Ages, but there won't be any new books about Harry Potter at Hogwarts. Ah well! So as the summer release of the final Harry Potter film draws near, we are all a little bit sad. Right now I am doing some things that bring back memories, like rereading the books or watching DVD bonus material.

But one thing that I dug up again is the 2007 documentary "A Year in the Life of J. K. Rowling". I thought it's a really beautifully done documentary which follows the author through a critical phase of her career - namely the year in which she finished writing the final book of the Harry Potter series. It's almost surreal to see her sitting in a hotel room now, after the book has been released, actually finishing the very last bit of the novel. Then you get a brief look at how the manuscript was transported to the publisher and finally being printed as well.

Other than centering around the production of the Harry Potter saga the documentary also features J. K. Rowling's sister and husband and they're talking a bit about their family life. James Runcie also asks Jo a few very interesting questions and touches on the hard times in her life, after her divorce and the birth of her first child, when she faced depression and how she managed to keep going after all. Some insights on how Rowling's personal hardships in life and probably most of all the death of her mother influenced the book series are also given.

Overall, it is probably the perfect documentary to watch for a Harry Potter enthusiast who wants to know more about the author. If you are a fan like me and familiar with Rowling's basic biography you will probably already know a lot of the things that are talked about in this documentary. However, it is still an interesting watch. Especially scenes like the one where Rowling has the opportunity to visit one of her old flats again and is overwhelmed by emotion when she sees the Harry Potter books standing on a shelf there, shouldn't be missed by fans.

But even if you aren't a fan of Harry Potter, J. K. Rowling is an interesting woman. She has very interesting views on life and if you ever wanted to check out what the fuss is all about this documentary might be a good place to start as well.

Classic or Insider's Tip? Three Wishes for Cinderella

Here comes another Christmas recommendation. First and foremost I have to say that I do not belong to the people, probably the generation, for whom the 1973 Czech / German coproduction Three Wishes for Cinderella is a classic that has to be watched every Christmas. I have only recently seen that movie for the first and only time, even though it is one of those movies that is on German TV every Christmas, just like Dinner for One is always on on New Year's Eve. I am not really aware of how it is for the anglophone countries. When I tried to check it out on youtube there were also English comments claiming that that movie was a childhood favourite and the upload was much appreciated. However, since I wasn't even aware it was such a popular movie in Germany until my mother told me about it, I really can't make a guess about its international popularity. I am not even sure if there is a proper English dub available.

Cinderella deviates from the "original story" that we know from, for example the Disney movie, in the fact that Cinderella doesn't get a visit from her fairy goodmother but instead by chance she is presented with three magical hazelnuts. Each of those hazelnuts will grant her one wish, which in the story are a huntsman's outfit, the famous Cinderella ballgown and finally a beautiful wedding dress. Plus, the Cinderella in this story is a much more feisty and bold young lady, throwing a snowball at the young spoiled Prince when she comes across him for the first time. But more on the character of Cinderella later.

The overall movie, even though it is of course not comparable to the movies of today just exudes an air of real magic and beauty. Most of the movie was filmed in Saxony, Germany and the real snowy landscapes are some of the most beautiful landscapes I have seen on TV. The German expression "wie im Märchen" - like in a fairytale - springs to mind immediately. Then there is also something extraordinary about the costumes that I just can't quite put my finger on. I think it may have to do with the fact that today's productions that are set in medieval times or fantasy worlds always aim for a sort of grimy and realistic factor, making everything look a bit damp, cold and uncomfortable... the way the actual middle ages were after all. But in that old movie, naturally, all the costumes are done really beautifully, even if realism might suffer a bit from that. But paradoxically, for some reason the costumes from this movie look "more real" to me than the costumes that you will find in movies these days. I can't really explain it, I guess you have to see it for yourself.

What I find really extraordinary about the movie however is how the role of young Cinderella is changed. Maybe Cinderella is one of the most active "princesses" to begin with, if you look at the canon of Disney princesses, but Three Wishes for Cinderella takes it all a step further. When Cinderella meets the Prince in the forest for the first time she throws a snowball at him, preventing him from shooting a deer with his crossbow. Together with his friends he tries to chase her down but she cleverly escapes the guys numerous times and when she is finally confronted with the Prince she just laughs at him instead of being intimidated by his authority. The second time they meet is at a hunting party and she disguises herself as a young huntsman. She sets her sights on the eagle that the Prince is trying to shoot and manages to capture it before he's even ready. Then the hunting party asks her to show her marksman skills some more and she earns a jewelled ring from the Prince, still not telling him her name. Finally, as Cinderella goes to the ball at the castle she wears a veil that hides her face and the Prince is very intrigued by her. While he dances with her, he declares that he has already decided to marry her. But Cinderella stops him and reminds him that he has forgotten the most significant thing: To ask her if she wants to marry him! She leaves him with a riddle about her identity and runs from the palace at midnight.

The Prince, puzzled, picks up her slipper and vows to find her no matter where she is. When he finally does find her and she is waiting for him in a beautiful wedding dress, he does solve the riddle about her identity and it is only then, when he realises that she's been both the little insolent girl and the remarkable young huntsman, that she can accept him and they can live happily ever after. Even though at heart, this is still a silly little fairytale, the added elements really make it quite valuable, especially since Cinderella in that adaption isn't your usual inactive princess that is just desperate trying to get married. I guess this film shows some of the better elements of socialism - the ideal of gender equality and the disdain for monarchy, as the Prince is mostly depicted as spoiled and silly. Even though the reality might have looked different it is still great to see such an adaption and if you consider that this movie will soon be 40 years old, its depiction of a strong female overtakes many depictions of females we get in contemporary cinema.

In the end Three Wishes for Cinderella is an extremely beautiful movie and if you have a chance to catch it on TV I definitely recommend watching it. I feel like every country has brought forth some really nice productions at some point and for Czech cinema that's probably this movie as well as imaginative productions like "Arabela" (German title: Die Märchenbraut), which were very popular on German TV as well.

A Sweet Movie to watch on a lazy Sunday Afternoon: 1234

1234 is a cute little movie (you know, one of those movies that you'd just like to hug close) about a bunch of twentysomethings trying to form a band. It's actually mostly Stevie who tries to escape his boring every day life of working in a call centre by trying to create that band and he has to convince his friend Neil, a morose guitarist named Billy and an artsy bass-player named Emily to join him and make it work.

I'll be honest and say it was mainly Ian Bonar, playing the protagonist of this movie, who made me want to watch it. I really enjoyed Ian Bonar's performance in Going Postal and he's also very cute in this movie. His character is believable and likable and it's just fun to watch the little story unfold. Not a whole lot will be happening in this movie but it's really fun to have a look at all the different and kind of strange characters and their way through life. Being twentysomething I can definitely relate to the position that all of the lead characters are finding themselves in in life: Not knowing exactly what you want to do with your life, despite being an "adult" already or maybe knowing exactly what you want to do with your life but the fact that what you want to do isn't considered a real career.

There are a few quite funny scenes in that movie. Personally, they had me at the moment where Stevie has to join a game of LARP in the woods to convince Billy to join his band. It is quite a surreal idea at first but it fits very well to the theme of quite unique and yet not unrealistic characters that populate this movie.

I also liked Emily, it's interesting to have a look at all the art projects that she is working on throughout the movie. It's not every day that you see art portrayed within art (such as a movie) and I always find it to be quite interesting. Overall the movie has some really beautiful shots as well, be it a dark city skyline or pale and cold looking streets. Of course the music is pretty much a core topic of the whole movie and thus you will experience a lot of music while watching and if you like Indie music it might be cool to check it out just for that.

In the end 1234 to me seemed to be a very sweet little movie to watch on a lazy Sunday afternoon, when you are recovering from whatever you have been doing and not quite ready for the week to begin again on Monday. Frankly, some people might claim this movie is very boring and I have to admit not a whole lot is happening but sometimes it's just extremely nice to be watching a calm movie and if you decide to do that you might as well decide to watch a good one. 1234 is perfect for such an occasion. I'm really surprised that nobody I know has ever heard of that movie and I have never heard it being mentioned anywhere. For that fact alone I feel like it's my duty to write about this movie. People should watch it. Go watch it!

Penumbra Trilogy

One of the things that I really regretted the most about attending Gamescom 2010 was not being able to go to Paradox Interactive's booth! Sadly, they were only in the press area and not in the entertainment area, so as a mere mortal, I was not allowed to go by their booth and say hi or whatever it is I may have done. I have to admit, out of all the fun and innovative games that they published I only really know Penumbra. Penumbra is a trilogy consisting of Penumbra Overture, Penumbra Black Plague and Penumbra Requiem and it mainly takes place in an underground mine and later an underground bunker in the remote icy plains of Greenland. We don't get to know a whole lot about our protagonist named Phillip, except that he inherited a bunch of files from his father, who apparently had been declared dead for 30 years already, and who asks him to burn all the files and ignore the undecipherable information that is hidden inside of them. Naturally, Phillip indulges his curiosity and while he cannot crack the code and find out what it is he is supposed to burn and destroy, he finds a location marked in the notes: The above mentioned abandoned mine in Greenland.

Penumbra is one of the very rare games that I have not actually played myself. My boyfriend and me played it together, which means, he takes care of the controls and I occasionally pipe up when he is stuck somewhere. Because Penumbra does contain a bunch of really interesting riddles! You can't even really define the genre that Penumbra belongs to because to me it is a game not quite like anything I have ever experienced before. If pressed, I'd also group it under Survival Horror and Adventure Game. I'm mainly going to talk about Penumbra Overture here because that was the part that I enjoyed the most. We also played through Black Plague and liked it well enough but we were a bit disappointed with Requiem and didn't even finish playing that one.

Anyway, the first thing that probably springs to mind is the quite special controls of Penumbra. Penumbra actually has a working physics engine and the game also makes practical use of that engine, as opposed to "only" using it for realistic effects. Which means, as only a few games have fully made use of the physics engine before, you will have to block doors with barrels or stones that you will actually have to haul all the way over to where they are needed, by dragging them with your mouse. The controls of Penumbra are much less coded than it was the case with games of the same genre in the past. When you want to use a key, you don't just select it in your inventory. You take it into your hand and have to guide it to the keyhole. When you want to fight you actually have to swing the weapon around as opposed to pressing or holding an attack button. And maybe most memorably, if you want to open a door, you have to grab it and pull or push it open with your hand. The fact that doors aren't opening by themselves when you interact with them in a certain coded way is probably one of the things that makes the game the most immediate and creepy. Because the interaction with the game is much more direct and demands of you to actually perform motions such as attacking and opening of doors, everything feels much more real.

Then you have to mention that while the graphics aren't completely amazing as you might expect from super expensive games it is a very clever play with atmosphere and setting that makes up for any graphics shortcoming that you might experience. Penumbra Overture is a game that has the balls to never have you interact with another human shaped being face to face. You enter that abandoned mine in Greenland and soon start to feel that complete loneliness and isolation from the rest of humanity. There is no going back, there is only going deeper into the mine to finally chase down the information about your father and why it was so important to burn the files and never have the information contained in them known to mankind. After a while, you really start to feel the pressure and between big spiders, flayed dogs and mutant rock worms little breaks between game sessions are definitely advisable.

But after a while you also stop thinking so much about the reason why you have entered the mine in the first place because the strange ongoings in there and the meeting of a new "friend", which is only present through a staticy voice over a radio, you just start wondering what the hell has been going on in that mine. Penumbra is very subtle here. While some games would quickly point the viewer to the popular and quite overused trope of "Nazi superscience", Penumbra leaves it at subtle hints like supply sacks with "Thule" written on them and a typewriter from 1933. We always hope to find more information to what has been going on in the mine, what the research was for in the end and we are especially looking forward to the meeting of our only "friend" within the whole game, an ominous person named "Red" who guides us through the labyrinth of tunnels and caves, never quite knowing what he wants us to meet him for. The combined effects of the very involved physics engine and the psychological impact of constant isolation and imminent danger are guaranteed to grip you and make Penumbra Overture a trip that you won't forget quickly.

Apart from the general action of the game it is noticable that Penumbra is a game that has been made with a lot of love and out of the raw desire to just create a fun videogame. The voice acting is sometimes funny in a way that the voice acting in the first few Silent Hill games was slightly off in moments as well, but fans will grow to love these little quirks most certainly. Then there are some sweet little easter eggs to be found, one being a little sort of Space Invaders style game on one of the PCs in the abandoned shelter. Another one being a cute reference to a certain wellknown hero with a crowbar. Any game that makes a reference like that is cool by default.

Some people might find the ending of Penumbra Overture to be really disappointing. You could say that Frictional Games has been making this up as they were going along, especially when you consider that Penumbra Black Plague throws your protagonist into a completely disconnected scenario, having gone from the abandoned mine into a seemingly abandoned shelter and thus entering a whole different plot line. Fear not, the resolution of Black Plague is much more satisfying, but looking back I just can not help but be sad that the ending of Penumbra Overture has been kind of anticlimatic.

Still, Penumbra is a game that I can wholeheartedly recommend to anybody who is even slighty interested in Survival Horror or just a really well made game, different from most that we find on the market these days. Since the game has been out for some years already it's available for quite a cheap price at amazon so it's definitely worth having a look at, even if you, like me, turn out to be a bit too chicken to play the game yourself. It's the perfect game to play with a friend to keep encouraging each other to go on, go deeper into the mine. You're gonna have fun and will feel very glad that you aren't alone.

Halloween Recommendation: The Walking Dead

Pictures by AMC

Oh my, it's nearly Halloween already! Time really passes fast. That's why I have to get another Halloween recommendation off my chest quickly. Here they come, The Walking Dead!

The Walking Dead begins in a manner very similar to another of my genre favourites: 28 Days Later. A man, a cop actually, wakes up from a coma in a hospital and has to find out the hard way that while he was unconscious the hordes of the undead, just referred to as 'walkers', descended upon his small hometown. Now he has to make his way in this new society, trying to find his family and work together with any survivors that he might find along the way.

I am not really sure what I think about the premiere date of AMC's new series The Walking Dead. On the one hand Halloween is perfect for the premiere of a zombie TV series, on the other hand, won't the primary target audience of this series be busy being dressed up, having a party and stuff like that? (I surely am planning on being Zoey from Left 4 Dead for Halloween) Still, even if they don't catch it when it first airs then at least the VCRs will be sure to preserve it for later viewing.

AMC, what I have seen of you so far (and my experience ends with Mad Men) I have really enjoyed and you are surprisingly high quality for a relatively small cable channel. Will The Walking Dead be able to fill the sad void that has been left behind after the season finale of the latest season of Mad Men aired?

At first glance it has to be said that the genres are extremely different. Subtle drama on the one hand, bloodthirsty zombies on the other. However, a look at the moderately paced pilot of The Walking Dead could make you think again. Veterans of the zombie genre are often used to a movie spanning 90 minutes. Now the first episode of The Walking Dead is pretty much just as long, but compared to your average zombie movie the plot progresses very slowly. Which is natural and a good thing, actually. Since all in all we will get six episodes in this first season, there is no need to spill all the beans in the first one. I think the genre really benefits from having time to breathe occasionally.

From what I could see so far I think The Walking Dead might surprise us with how far it actually is from your average zombie movie. I have really high hopes for the series and I am also excited to find out how that material does outside of movies, videogames or comics. I haven't read the comic book that The Walking Dead is based on, but all around you hear that it is outstanding and thought-provoking. Maybe it will be a good replacement for Mad Men after all. And it has zombies, on top of that!

I have of course also heard claims of sexism towards the comic book, but I don't think I have seen enough to pass judgement on that just yet. All I can say is The Walking Dead is a treat that zombie enthusiasts should not miss out on this Halloween!

Halloween Recommendation: Ghosts on the Underground

It's already October and this means: Halloween is upon us! You can hardly celebrate that night without some spooky movies, ghost stories and the like and there is also a great wealth of Halloween-themed media so this would be a good opportunity to recommend some appropriately creepy pieces of entertainment.

The 2006 documentary "Ghosts on the Underground" by Polar Media, originally made for Channel Five, is not Halloween-themed per se but it is a documentary about ghosts on the London Underground and thus perfect for the occasion. It remains one of my favourite documentaries to this day for a number of reasons.

First of all it is important to say, that you will very likely be able to enjoy this documentary whether you believe in ghosts or not because this documentary doesn't claim to do anything else but let railway workers on the Underground tell their stories about experiences they have had. It doesn't push any kind of truth about the existence of ghosts into your face, instead it presents the tales, provides some facts and lets the viewer decide for themselves what they make of it.

Another really beautiful thing about this documentary is the cinematography. You will see lots of beautiful and stylishly edited shots of the deserted London Underground at night, the way you'd never see it during the day when you travel through it. Even if you do not care about ghost stories at all, the documentary is worth watching just because it has these beautiful and stylish images of the Underground itself. The viewer is also able to take a look at areas that they would normally never be able to see, such as Kennington loop or maintenance tunnels. The sound design of this documentary is amazing as well. A nice and subtle selection of songs and tunes enhance the creepy but never blatant atmosphere and the narration by Paul McGann is quite neutral and tasteful.

I have watched American documentaries on ghosts before and they were loud, laughable and disgustingly sensationalist. This documentary is quite the opposite of that, an overall cool and neutral style of narration doesn't push the viewer to believe anything but does provide a chilling feeling for those that want to be chilled all the same.

The stories themselves are pleasantly goose-bumps inducing and after each story you are provided with a more or less related fact about that area of the Underground, which you can then either connect to the story that was told before or decide it's all a coincidence. Beyond the ghost stories the documentary additionally provides some historical information about the London Underground and points out that it's one of the oldest underground transportation networks in world history. Another part of the documentary is a sort of experiment that connects infrasound with the phenomenon of ghosts sightings and at a few locations of the Underground measurements of infrasound are made. You can argue whether this part has any scientific merit at all but I thought it was a nice touch and provided an alternate explanation for the ghostly phenomenons beyond "it must be the spirits of the deceased".

Overall, this documentary is just very fun to watch, contains beautiful and unusual imagery and never puts the viewer in an uncomfortable position, whether they believe in the subject matter of the documentary or not. From what I can tell, it must also be a shining star among ghost documentaries because, obviously, this is not the most respectable subject to make a documentary about and thus the relatively serious and neutral tone of the documentary is an achievement in and of itself.