Feature film set in German Underground Hospital premieres this week

Underground is the latest film by Guernsey Filmworks.

Set and filmed entirely in Guernsey, this is the film company’s first feature-length film. Taking place in the German Underground Hospital, it follows a hen night that goes wrong.

‘So terribly wrong,’ said Charlotte Dawn Potter, who also stars in the film. ‘Like so terribly wrong, and they end up in the underground hospital, and they’re all a little bit drunk, and then the ghosts all come out, and then history comes back to life, and they’re stuck there.’

How did the idea come about?

‘It kind of started as a bit of a joke because the only thing that was filmed there was The Blockhouse film from somewhere in the 70s,’ explained Lars Janssen. ‘And if it’s a recent film it’s usually a documentary or a TV special.’

‘Or paranormal investigations,’ said Charlotte.

Both Charlotte and Lars are involved in the writing process.

‘We have a very specific writing process,’ said Lars. ‘We kind of flesh out the ideas and brainstorm the ideas between us and come up with a story outline.’

• Listen to the full interview with Lars and Charlotte on this month's Guernsey Press Arts Podcast

‘Then Lars generally does the first run through and first draft of the script,’ said Charlotte. ‘And then we just pass it between us, time and time again. So Lars will pass me the script. I will go through it and make my adjustments, my edits, cross things out very brutally, put whole new sections in, and then I pass it back to Lars and we repeat until we’re both happy with it. And that’s what’s worked for us time and time again.’

Do they make storyboards?

‘It depends on the project,’ said Charlotte. ‘Like when we did the short film Lorelei. There were very specific visuals and shots we wanted to create. And we’ve got future projects that are very visually precise. Whereas Underground is a found footage movie. So Blair Witch Project, Cloverfield, Paranormal Activity – it’s a very different style. And it pulls you in with the characters and it’s very immersive in how it works, but they’re not like beautiful scenic, specifically crafted shots. It’s a different type of medium. That’s the premise of kind of found footage. It’s got to look realistic, doesn’t it? It has to look accidental and real. So you can’t set things up perfectly because then it’s like “This is so fake”.’

It’s not the first time that Charlotte and Lars have filmed in this location. As well as some scenes for the aforementioned Lorelei, a short three-minute film, also called Underground, was made there for a UK competition. It must be a filmmaker’s dream of a place.

‘But it’s so scary,’ said Charlotte. ‘There are sounds in the film that we recorded that we can’t explain, that we were like, “OK, this is a spooky sound, put it into the soundscape”. Is that real? Or did we actually record that? There’s a shrieking noise and there’s like whooshing and dripping and footsteps that we captured. We were like “Thank you, ghosts, we’ll put this in”.’

‘Especially when you go in with very high sensitive microphones,’ said Lars. ‘Sometimes we didn’t even notice until I was editing.’

All in all the cast and crew spent two weeks in the underground hospital.

‘It made us all go a bit delirious,’ admitted Charlotte. ‘The mould and the damp and the wetness and the earth. And I tell you, when you’re down there, it feels like time is dragging on and then you’ll come out to the top and it’ll be dark.’

As well as Charlotte, the cast includes Maaike Tol (who had been in Charlotte and Lars’ productions Blue Blood and Backstage), Nadia Dawber, Caitlyn Barber (who was in the original short, Underground) and local-born actor Sapphire Brewer-Marchant.

‘Caitlin had spent quite a decent amount of time here, but Maaike is a Dutch actress and Nadia is from the UK,’ said Charlotte. We have local actors in some of the other roles as well. You might also see [the Guernsey Press’s very own] Simon De La Rue.

‘We were sharing Sapphire during the shoot because they were in another film, Dare to Dream, with Alex Bates, and they were in Macbeth. So they were spread very thin. So we had to say, “Hey, Alex, can we have Sapphire on Saturday?” and he’d say “We need Sapphire on Saturday afternoon”. So we had to trade Sapphire between us.’

This is Charlotte and Lars’ first feature film. Is it easier to make a short or is it easier to make a longer film?

‘I think by default it’s easier to make a short because it just takes less time and less resources, less money,’ said Charlotte. ‘And because the feature has so much more footage and material.’

‘But there’s got to be a pace to it,’ said Lars. ‘Especially in a horror or a thriller. You can’t keep it up all the time because it either becomes boring or overwhelming.’

‘You can’t constantly be scary, scary, scary,’ said Charlotte. ‘People often think if you say horror, they immediately think of slashers and buckets of gore and blood and guts. They immediately think of the more extremes, but there are so many sub-genres within the genre. And we personally like more the paranormal or supernatural and suggestive.’

Guernsey Filmworks has several projects on the go, including collaborations with US and UK filmmakers who want to work on-island, as well as a couple more horrors coming up.

‘We’re juggling so many things, but I think we’ve got three well fleshed out projects that are in various stages right now,’ said Charlotte. ‘And along the line, we basically also get in touch with people that see our work and get interested in Guernsey.’

‘Even the film festival that we organised last year, Guernsey Film Fest, there’s going to be another one on 7 and 8 October,’ said Lars. ‘The theme is folklore.’

The premiere of Underground is invitation only.

‘But people who would like to attend, for free, can contact us to get on the guest list,’ said Lars. ‘It’s an invitation only event, but we are happy to welcome people to join us for the premiere. They can go to www.filmworks.gg and send us a message. Limited seats available. First come, first served.’

There will also be public showings.

‘We have some little fun tricks up our sleeve,’ said Charlotte. ‘Including some screenings actually in the underground hospital to raise money for Festung Guernsey to help them continue to maintain all of the fortifications on the island and keep that history alive. So, if you come into that, you want bundling up very, very warm.

‘I don’t know if I’ll be there. I’ll say “hi” and then I’ll come back for the end. It’s just so scary. I’ve spent so much of my life down there.’

• Underground premieres at the Princess Royal Centre for Performing Arts on Saturday 17 June at 7.45pm. To find out more about Guernsey Filmworks and future screenings of Underground, visit www.filmworks.gg. More information will be forthcoming about Guernsey Film Fest at www.guernseyfilmfest.gg. Underground is supported by Guernsey Arts.