Deathwatch (2002 film)

Deliver them from evil.

British war horror movie made in 2002.

Set during World War I, a group of British soldiers "go over the top" in an assault against German lines. However, in the middle of the battle, a mysterious fog descends upon the battlefield and the night suddenly turns into day. Hours later, they finally stumble upon the German trenches only to find a mere 3 German soldiers, petrified and pointing their guns down their own trenches. The British soldiers call for them to surrender, but the Germans are more scared of something in the trench than them. After murdering two of them and torturing the third, the British troops begin exploring the trench, only to find the bodies of more Germans, seemingly killed by friendly fire. Even stranger, the trenches seem to lead nowhere, simply doubling back on themselves. With a prisoner babbling about demons, impenetrable fog, and a broken radio, they quickly form a defensive position and wait for reinforcements that never come.

Though their radio can't send messages, it can still receive them. High command seems rather sure that the attack failed and there were no survivors....

Needless to say, it starts getting worse from there.

---

Tropes used in Deathwatch (2002 film) include:

• A Date with Rosie Palms: All Starinski wanted, poor dear.
• Anachronism Stew : Not very overt, but there are some inconsistencies. In one scene, Charlie picks up and wields a Bergmann MP 18 SMG - unless the film is set in 1918, this early example of a machine pistol can't possibly be found on the front, since the Germans only started using it in the last year of the war. The Lee-Enfield rifles wielded by the soldiers are also a later, WWII-era version of the model (the WWI version being harder to come by). But the most obvious example by far is the surprisingly small radio receiver they find and repair. No country had military or civilian radios that small and advanced during WWI. It would fit better in the 1920s.
  • Regards the SMLE, the WW 1 version (the No.1 MkIII or MkIII*) is not difficult to come by at all: the Australians went on making them until after World War 2.
  • Actually, the Bergman was first fielded by 1916 in small numbers.
• Ax Crazy/Blood Knight: Quinn (Andy Serkis) is about as Axe Crazy as a character can get.
• Captain Smooth and Sergeant Rough: Jennings and Tate fit this, but it's subverted by Tate being somewhat more sympathetic and A Father to His Men than Jennings.
• Clueless Aesop
• Daylight Horror: Most of the movie, but the night scenes are almost equally long as the day ones and the daylight itself is consistently gloomy.
• Death by Sex: Starinski, almost. But only with himself.
• Do Not Do This Cool Thing: Averted, even though it's not a war movie in the traditional sense.
• Fog of Doom: Hey, it's World War I. Fog of Doom is already all over the damn place.
• Foreshadowing : Connected to the Fog of Doom above. The protagonists were fighting off the Germans from their trench in the middle of the night, but got knocked out and awoke in a somewhat different location, surrounded completely by thick fog. And the night suddenly changed to day time. One or two of the characters even lampshade the unusualness of this.
• Gainax Ending
• Genre Blindness : Both played straight and averted.
• Hey, It's That Guy!: Most of the cast are commonly seen on British TV (but perhaps not to the point that everyone knows their names without looking them up).
  • Billy Elliot and Gollum wade through the mud of a haunted trench on the western front.
• Karmic Death: Most of the cast, who are each shown to be morally flawed (or just unlucky) in some way, are shown to get their comeuppance in various gruesome ways. Especially Quinn. *shudder*
• Last-Name Basis : A subversion, since in the script and credits, the characters are mentioned by their full names. But the only personal name used on screen regularly is Charlie's.
• Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane : The whole haunting and supernatural phenomenna going on in the abandoned trench. Including living barbed-wire.
• Not Even Bothering with the Accent / What the Hell Is That Accent? : Is Bradford supposed to be Canadian or British ?
• Nothing Is Scarier : The earlier portions of the movie, before the squad members start getting killed off in mysterious ways by unknown forces or themselves under suspicious coincidences.
• Officer and a Gentleman : Averted by Jennings and Tate, both of them enormous Jerkasses. This trope is also double subverted by Tate, since he's oficially a sergeant and acts pretty jerky, but shows some signs of being a Jerk with a Heart of Gold.
• Only Sane Man : Charlie and, to a questionable extent, private Chevasse and doc Fairweather.
• Our Ghosts Are Different
• Psychological Horror / Surreal Horror : It's implied that, rather than 'crazy unexplained barbed-wire magic', the cause of the company's fate may have been collective madness - wandering into a maze-like trench filled with dead Germans without contact from your superiors for weeks is bound to do this kind of thing to you.
  • Or to give the writer a little more credit : They all died in the initial attack, the trench is a form of Purgatory, and the German is an angel/demon who's purpose is to test the morality of their characters. Those that fail die and stay in the trench, those that succeed get to leave it. Notice that this makes a lot more sense, given what's mentioned in the Foreshadowing entry.
• Psycho Party Member: Overtly Quinn, and later Bradford.
• Psychotic Smirk : Quinn most of the time. By the end of the movie, Bradford has an even creepier smile on his face when threatening Charlie.
• The Reveal : The German soldier at the end.
• Sanity Slippage: All the characters after they enter the creepy abandoned trench and decide to hold it until backup arrives.
• Sinister Minister : Bradford slowly morphs into this because of his gradual Sanity Slippage. He was quite The Fundamentalist before as well, just not insane yet.
• Sliding Scale of Idealism Versus Cynicism : Unabashedly cynical in its portrayal of The Squad, whose members are mostly bastards at best and violent psychos at worst. Needless to say, the image of the tragic yet cheerful "Tommies" seen in British World War I propaganda gets completely shattered...
• Sociopathic Soldier: Quinn.

"Thank god he's on our side, eh?"

• • How about this exchange ?

Quinn: "I went to Blackpool once..."
Starinski: "Oh, was it nice ?"
Quinn: "I killed a man there... Yeah, it was nice."

• The Squad :
  • New Meat / The Hero : private Charlie Shakespeare
  • Sergeant Rock: sergeant Tate
  • Upper Class Twit / The Neidermeyer : Captain Jennings. Particularly narmy when he definitely goes off his nut.
  • The Engineer / The Fundamentalist / Beware the Nice Ones : private Bradford
  • Psycho for Hire: private Quinn
  • Cold Sniper : private Starinski
  • The Medic / Mauve Shirt : Doc Fairweather
  • Bonnie Scotland: private McNess, token stereotypical Black Watch (Highland Regiment) soldier.
  • Red Shirt / Sacrificial Lamb : private Chevasse
• Trench Of Insanity
• War Is Hell: Oh yes. By miles.
• World of Ham: All of the soldiers, with the possible exception of the German.
• World War I : The setting is the western front, presumably in the later stages of the war (cca 1917). And it's as muddy and grim as ever...