PROJEKT ANGST, which should have been translated as "Project Fear" instead of its actual clunky English title, is a found footage horror film using the familiar plot outline of a group of young people putting themselves in harm's way and then suffering the consequences.
Although the plot outline has been done a million times before, I believe there is always room for creativity and originality to lift it up to a viewing experience that still feels fresh. That is unfortunately not quite the case here, but the story still offers a couple interesting if not entirely novel story aspects.
First, the central concept is that the purpose of the excursion by the group is for each member to face their most dreaded fear: for one it is fear of heights, for another fear of darkness, yet another fear of closed spaces and so on. I actually like that: the group sets out to expand the boundaries of their comfort zone, something we are often told (and rightly, in my opinion) almost all of us should do more often.
Second, most of the story plays out inside a bunker in the Swiss Alps, a setting I had not previously seen in a found footage film. It appears that shortly before the onset of World War 2, the Swiss built a whole bunch of these as a means of self-defense. After the war, they fell into disuse and eventually many of them were apparently sold off (how cool is it to say that one owns a WWII bunker in the Alps?), until very recently, after Russia's invasion of Ukraine, the Swiss military decided to commission them once again for potential defensive use.
Of the reviews I have read, there are allegations that the story makes no sense, or that there is no plot, but I think it is not difficult to conceptualize the happenings within a coherent narrative that encompasses both.
In the early parts of the movie, some of the members of the group do behave in seemingly strange ways, but we have to remember, they are trying to scare each other, and in that light, their actions at least no longer seem irrational. The basic story idea or lesson is, apparently, that we should be careful how far we try to extend the boundary of our comfort zone, especially if it involves potential danger to ourselves and others.
In the later parts of the movie, some members of the group also behave in strange ways, but it is easy to conceptualize within a narrative that makes sense out of what we see.
In the prologue, a recording of a physician is played who says that several soldiers stationed at the bunker were injured and that something is not right, followed by a title card which says that the bunker was closed to public access. The film never specifies the nature of the danger in the bunker, but it seems quite plausible to me to suppose that it was toxic mold.
There is some real-life evidence that toxic mold can cause or contribute to psychotic episodes, and reactions can vary from person to person. So, from my perspective, this movie was about a group of young people who wanted to test the limits of their courage, but were unfortunate to choose a setting which affected their psychic well-being, thereby bringing about the psychic breakdown of several of them.
One of the members, Manu, might have been so sensitive to the toxic mold that it affected him physiologically, and that would explain his demise. Finally, the "Manfred" actor was shown early in the film to be eating some of the mold, which may have poisoned him so that he died in some obscure place before he could come to rescue the group.
Within this particular narrative, there is even a bit of irony, because the person who seemed to be the most resilient to the effects of the mold ended up dying from its aggravating the effects of a history of child abuse (her "I am evil" seems to me clearly a manifestation of guilt induced by gaslighting of her abusive dad, who blamed her for his abuse).
Again, the film leaves open what actually might have affected the group, but the toxic mold narrative seems to me sufficiently consistent with all aspects of the story to be satisfactory. Maybe the film makers should have put a reason behind the injuries that led to the closing of the bunker.
Overall, I rated this film higher than others not only because the movie did entertain me, but because the story seemed quite coherent, I could discern a clear plot, and there were a couple interesting aspects to the story.
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