Metacritic reviews

Infusing its nightmarish scenario with bracing doses of satirical humor, Tunnel is smarter and more sophisticated than most Hollywood attempts at the genre.

A harrowing spectacle that makes one forget to breathe.

While Kim Seong-hun’s Tunnel sounds like it resembles any number of creepy tunnel pics or grand catastrophe epics, it’s actually a lean, enjoyable disaster story with enough distinctive elements to make it feel relatively fresh.

Kim successfully captures the loneliness and entrapment underneath the debris and the chaos outside.

Too often the mechanisms of plot can be felt, the beats of the story seen, and the obvious intentions of the story heard in a line of dialogue. So, while at times it’s easy to see the great film that Tunnel could have been, that never stops it from being perfectly watchable thriller that it is.

Unfortunately, there’s not enough story here to warrant the film’s more than two-hour running time; 90 taut minutes tracking a week in the ruined tunnel would have sufficed. Still, it’s a vivid and relatable tale.