Finally a decent, scary horror film

Rating: 9/10 (25 July 2005)

I saw the trailer for this a while back and immediately thought it looked rubbish. Another by the numbers horror film following the usual rules and ultimately leading to the usual, drab, gore-fest. How wrong I was! Off the back of a Mark Kermode review in The Observer I thought I would give it a crack - particularly as my girlfriend's a horror fan and I needed to redeem the genre after suffering her making me watch Creep. The plot is basic and borrows from numerous other horror films. Group of friends "with issues" get trapped in dark place with nasty things there out to get them. However, the way the material is realised on screen keeps you constantly on the edge of your seat, jumping repeatedly, however telegraphed the scares are, and cringing away from the fairly gruesome gore. One scene in particular when the group use the infra red setting on a camcorder to check everyone is OK had the entire cinema (including myself) screaming - an experience completely new to me and a real pleasure to endure. The pace is very cleverly set, with a slow, but never boring, build up of menace as the women's situation plummets from bad to downright hellish, before exploding in a finale that will leave you scared, breathless and absolutely terrified of the dark. I have never ever had the desire to go potholing, but now would probably go so far as to sit through Hollow Man, Vertical Limit AND Weekend at Bernie's II before venturing below the earth's crust into a dark hole. Go and see it... please! I was really pleasantly surprised and have been telling everyone I know to go and see it whereas normally by attachment to a movie ends when I leave the cinema. What's more, Alex Reid, who plays Beth, is from my home county of Cornwall - wahay!!!