Can anyone say "Overrated"?

Rating: 4/10 (3 February 2007)

Wow. I was excited before I saw this film. The hype. The reviews. I was made to believe I would see a brilliantly creepy, twisted, and original horror film.
I sadly, to say the least, didn't get what I expected. It starts off leading you into quite an interesting and creepy story of a group of female friends descending into an unexplored cave for an annual trip. Sadly, just when you get to the point when the big twist has happened and you're ready for all Hell to break loose, it shoots off in all directions, completely slaughtering the claustrophobic and mysterious feel of the film.
Now, the critics may tell you about how the terror of what's lurking in the dark and the descent into madness and betrayal the girls go on, but that's not what you will find here. Not at all. I watched this film alone in a dark house, and not once was I scared by it. The most you'll get here is some very cheap scares, all involving bat-people jumping out of crevices in rock that could easily have come straight from an eight-year-old's sense of horror. And, as far as the descent into betrayal and brutality you hear about goes, I can simply say you'll feel cheated when you find none of that. A girl kills another girl by accident. That's it. No kidding.
So, what I'm complaining about here is the build of the film: Girls meet up, girls go into cave, the scene gets creepy and builds a sense of claustrophobia, they get trapped in, they get attacked, they run around and scream and die for 25 minutes, they leave. Extremely anticlimactic.
I would give this film a two. I would. But the fact that it is able to at least build up at the beginning to a point where you care about the main characters and their relationship and it is surrounded in a dark and claustrophobic mood (which sadly is completely murdered later) gave me the will to add two extra stars.
In conclusion, let me clarify that this film did not scare me, nor did it affect me in any way. It's just an EXTREMELY overrated monster flick. I'd say that the critics desperately need to develop a taste in horror.