Once again - see less, fear more

Rating: 6/10 (5 August 2006)

I saw this movie a few weeks ago on DVD. In the beginning it is a rather unusual horror movie. The atmosphere, when all is dark and the women crawl through the cave, is excellent and you get a very very claustrophobic feeling, created by the darkness and the excellent sound that is muffled and very tight. It is something different, it is new and exciting and fun.
But then, there come the Gollums. It's not one horrible monster it's hundreds, and they are shown in plain detail only 5 minutes after their first appearance making them so much less frightening. The cuts are way to fast, in the fights sometimes you just don't see anything except some blurry, gory moves. Then you see the Gollums in plain detail, and you see them a lot. You just start to think: Oh, another Gollum. And they don't stop their noises by which they find their way through darkness, which is realistic but doesn't help much with excitement and fear.
Maybe I just don't get the point of the movie, but it had been so much better, if there weren't these creatures around all the time. Why not hear them first, see them briefly. Then pick the girls away one by one, or sudden attacks without seeing the monsters ? So that you are afraid of the next time when they strike, seeing them only briefly in their distorted form, making you think "What the hell is that" ? No, they constantly make noise, they just don't go away. Take that and the rather confusing end, and what starts of as a brilliant horror movie becomes average at best.
Horror fans will enjoy it, and I have to admit, I was frightened a lot in the movie.
But not sticking to the "What you can't see, you fear"-rule makes this movie so much worse than it could have been. Similar to "Wrong Turn".
So first act is a 9, the rest is a 4 to 5, that makes a 6 overall.