Dark and Dreary

Rating: 3/10 (16 August 2013)

A group of teenage girls go caving where they become stalked by a band of Humanoid creatures('Crawlers')who have evolved to life In the caves. While there's certainly a few suspenseful moments that will make you 'jump',what spoilt It for me was the 'silliness' of It all - I'll elaborate.... From living for however-many generations In the deep,dark caves,the creatures have become,unsurprisingly,blind. They've also lost their skin-colour and are albino. But humanoids living underground In total darkness,In a constantly freezing-cold and wet environment,would surely encourage the growth of body hair? Strangely,these creatures are completely devoid of any hair - even If they'ed manage to overcome the cold In some other evolutionary way,why would they lose their hair? It doesn't make sense. Such creatures would - with the loss of one sense(sight)have a compensatory Increase of other senses - and Indeed,these cave dwellers rely mainly on sound,having developed a highly-evolved hearing ability. This Is exemplified In a scene where a 'Crawler' passes within Inches of two girls who,staying silent,aren't detected by the creature - but surely such powerful hearing would have detected the girls breath or pounding heartbeats? And what about their sense of SMELL? We would expect this,too,to be equally evolved and surely the Crawler could have smelt the girls breath and body-odour (from a mile away,let alone just a few Inches!). Then,we have the 'night-vision'! As most people know,these superb devices gather the tiniest amounts of light,e.g. Starlight,or-on cloudy nights-even the almost indiscernible atmospheric light,and make It possible to 'see In the dark'. But,In a totally lightless,deep dark cave,there Is NO light whatsoever - night vision will not work at all In these conditions. Now,I know some people will think me petty-but for me,a horror or science-based movie has to be correct In such matters. It's those details which make the subject believable,makes you think 'Wow,this really could happen',and when the movie-makers don't bother to think these things through It spoils the whole film. All they need do Is bring In a couple of Science advisers,specialists In the particular fields of the Movies' subject matter,and such errors won't occur. My final 'complaint' - why oh why does It have to be a bunch of female teens who absolutely don't fit the bill of skilled cavers? Couldn't they have added just one thirty-something, professional woman?After all,had they done so,'killing her off' early In the film could have been the catalyst for the girls getting Into that whole load of trouble! It can't have been easy to film In all those confined spaces and I give credit for that,and the script Is quite good. If you like a movie that has the girls hiding behind a cushion,pillow or couch - then yes,It's worth a watch. But It could have been made better with a little extra thought.