derivative, but entertaining on a sensory level

Rating: 4/10 (12 January 2007)

I cannot believe how people have raved on and on about this gorefest. It's not bad but it's also no masterpiece.
I realize that it's best to check your sense of reality at the door with a horror film, but the idea that six surface-dwellers in a pitch-black, unfamiliar environment can take out more than a dozen feral creatures whose senses (presumably) are attuned to living in their home cave is insulting. I also liked the ending myself (my girlfriend says it's "lame") because Sarah finally hallucinates and clearly isn't ever leaving the cave. It's left sort of open-ended.
Just about everything in this movie is a rip-off of Predator and the Blair Witch Project. Moreover, the other devices this movie uses are used so often that they have become cliché. For example, the first five minutes of the movie is a flashback of a sudden and tragic death (then fast forwards to a year later). Deja Vu? That's because it's used in nearly EVERY A- rate horror film made in the past ten years.
I was disappointed by this movie. They made the creatures such a big part of the movie that they failed to be frightening by the end. In fact, the lead characters are so darned annoying in the cabin party scene that I found myself actually rooting for the creatures. The Sarah versus Juno subplot (also contrived) got in the way.