Here's the first teaser trailer for Cold Storage, a new German movie being filmed right now. It's late 1989 in Berlin, and the East Germans are rushing to destroy evidence of bizarre experiments — dating back to World War II — before the Berlin Wall comes down. But it turns out that the bunker containing the experiments wasn't just sealed to keep investigators out, but to keep something else in. More details about Germans confronting the weight of history, after the jump.
(BTW, the trailer is very high-quality, so it may load slowly. If you're having trouble playing it, just hit "pause" and wait for the whole thing to load before restarting.) Here's the official synopsis:
November 9th 1989 - the last day of a divided Germany. As a bankrupt Soviet Empire retreats, Lieutenant NEVSKI (30) leads an ill-equipped team of reluctant Soviet conscripts and two East German civilians on an unofficial mission into a long sealed and forgotten bunker, deep under Berlin.
Bribed by SINDERMANN, a mysterious East German scientist, their aim is to blow up the bunker, destroying it's secrets before Berlin opens up to the West. As a fateful press conference takes place above ground, the East German, LISA MEYER, (28) a construction engineer cuts through the concrete that back in the 1960s was poured down to block access to the bunker where her father died.
Nevski's rag-bag team follow dim concrete tunnels finding an underground hospital, cobwebs and dust shrouding its Cold War secrets. Venturing into the eerie decaying wards and operating theatres, the team un-earth horrific evidence of human experimentation dating back to WWII.
Suffering their first casualties of the night, they realise the concrete blocking the entrance was not to keep intruders out, but to keep the results of failed experiments in - murderous, semi organic killing machines with weapons and gas masks moulded and growing as part of their armoured bodies.
As crowds gather at the wall, unification in sight, clandestine forces arrive from the West; heavily armed American commandos, also seeking the bunker's valuable secrets. Nevski's team find themselves not only struggling to escape the bunker's legacy of inhuman killers but also fighting in a darker, more unofficial Cold War battle for power and survival.
There may be a whole canon of German horror films about past crimes, including World War II and the East German human-rights abuses, but if so I'm not aware of them. I like the way this trailer subtly starts out with 9/11... and then it morphs into Nov. 9, 1989, as if to say that the fall of the Berlin wall was like 9/11 for the Germans. And then the slogan: "The Cold War is over... the War On Terror is just beginning." There may be a slight political message in there, about how the War On Terror is like the Stazi come back to life... but I couldn't possibly comment on that.
Sadly, the website mentions they're still seeking funding to finish this movie... so I hope it actually gets made. It sucks that all the movie money in Germany is going into crappy TV miniseries about the Moon making the Eiffel Tower collapse. [Cold Storage, via Nuendo]