THE TUNNEL: THE OTHER SIDE OF DARKNESS

Featuring: Enzo Tedeschi, Julian Harvey, Carlo Ledesma, Andy Rodoreda, Bel Deliá, Luke Arnold, Steve Davis, Eduardo Sanchez, Ahmed Salama and Andrew Mackie.
Director: Adrian Nugent

Reviewed Sunday December 5 at Monster Fest 2021, Cinema Nova, Melbourne.

Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★

The key players at the centre of a unique moment in Australian cinema history reflect upon their achievements in The Tunnel: The Other Side of Darkness. Recounting the emerging technology, gathering of personalities, indie-film landscape and distribution infrastructure that smashed together and created the headline-grabber that was 2011’s The Tunnel, director Adrian Nugent’s deep-dive into the blind ambition and unshakeable faith behind the found-footage shocker is a must-see for genre fans and, more importantly, wannabe filmmakers everywhere (pictured, above: actress Bel Deliá and director Carlo Ledesma). 

When the production triumvirate of producer Enzo Tedeschi, writer Julian Harvey and director Carlo Ledesma decided to film a horror/thriller in the abandoned subway tunnels under Sydney’s CBD, elements such as budget constraints, daunting location logistics and the sector’s indifference to genre projects should have been key indicators that The Tunnel was not the best idea for a first feature. 

But the project was coalescing at a time when crowdfunding was peaking and Tedeschi, an understated but driven creative executive, brought old-school showmanship to the new filmmaking paradigm; he sold frames of his yet-to-shoot film for a dollar, counting on a secure production budget materialising ahead of lensing. He and Harvey then made the call that grabbed the industry’s attention - the film would go out free as a BitTorrent stream. The recognised tool of the video piracy criminal underworld would be used as a legitimate distribution platform.

The Tunnel: The Other Side of Darkness melds archival digital footage (as crisp now as when it was shot 11 years ago) with the recollections of many associated with the film. Cast members including Luke Arnold, Bel Deliá, Andy Rodoreda and Steve Davis, all front to recount the sense of community, unshakeable commitment and inevitable corner-cutting synonymous with independent film sets. The best ‘I-still-can’t-believe-it’ moment is when, posing as their news crew characters, the actors blend in with real-life journos at a press conference held by then-prime minister, Julia Gillard.

Although it veers very close to ‘insider only’ territory, the historical context in which Nugent and, on-camera, Tedeschi and Harvey recall life as BitTorrent denizens is no less compelling. The global trade-paper coverage of the film’s ultimate acquisition by local Paramount Studios' subsidiary Transmission Films and how damaging to all involved the ‘Studio Giant in Bed with Piracy Partner’ headlines became is behind-the-scenes gold (pictured, above: l-r, producer Enzo Tedeschi and writer Julian Harvey).        

One revelation left unexplored is in answer to the indelicate question - did The Tunnel make any money? It wrapped largely on budget and, at last count, the film had an estimated viral audience of 25 million views. But in the decade since The Tunnel crowd-surfed into existence, no major productions immediately come to mind that adopted the same distribution methodology. The documentary cites as creative inspiration that found-footage benchmark, The Blair Witch Project (co-director Eduardo Sanchez is a guest interviewee), but that film was a black ink-soaked blockbuster. Was the aim to get the film seen and/or turn a profit?

Irrespective of such crass considerations, the cult of The Tunnel is undeniable; Tedeschi recalls with pride a bucket-list moment when a chance meeting with Quentin Tarantino revealed the celebrated auteur as a Tunnel fan. And the influence of Harvey’s narrative and Ledesma’s visual stylings has resonated - check out the first episode of streaming service Shudder’s latest horror hit V/H/S 94 to see a terrific riff on life under a big city. 

The Tunnel: The Other Side of Darkness is a complete and compelling end-to-end account of independent production ingenuity and the passion it requires and inspires.