Every once in a while, a trailer comes along and simply makes you think: “Haven’t I seen every one of these elements in another piece of media? And recently?” So it is with the weirdo trailer for Trench 11, an upcoming Canadian World War 1-set horror film, which sees a group of Allied soldiers descending into an “abandoned” German bunker to confront the face of evil. Let’s see, where have I seen this recently?
Well, there’s the upcoming American release of Overlord, for one. The J.J. Abrams-produced film has been much-discussed as a potential puzzle piece in the ever-expanding Cloverfield universe, and is about a group of American paratroopers who drop behind enemy lines and discover a base full of Nazi zombies, ‘ala Dead Snow. But that film looks a bit more like “action horror” to us. If anything, Trench 11 actually seems to be borrowing more visual cues from American TV series The Strain, which featured no shortage of Nazi vampires—creatures called “strigoi” that were infected with the “strain” of vampirism by white, wormy things that looked more or less exactly like the white worms seen in the trailer for Trench 11. So all around, this feels oddly familiar, although Trench 11 seems to be taking itself more seriously than most—a sort of body horror film with shades of Alien or Prometheus.
Here’s the full synopsis:
In the final days of WWI a shell-shocked tunneller must lead an Allied team into a hidden German base…100 hundred feet below the trenches. The Germans have lost control of a highly contagious biological weapon that turns its victims into deranged killers. The Allies find themselves trapped underground with hordes of the infected, a rapidly spreading disease and a team of German Stormtroopers dispatched to clean up the mess.
Check out the trailer below and decide for yourself which piece of media Trench 11 is seeking to rip off most intently. The Leo Shcerman-directed film hits Canadian theaters on Aug. 31, 2018 and American streaming and digital platforms on Sept. 4.