Directed with masterful precision

Rating: 8/10 (30 September 2006)

Although the uneven werewolf movie 'Dog Soldiers' was warmly embraced by some horror buffs, this is a far more confident and unsettling chiller from Brit director Niel Marshall.
When six female spelunkers go potholing in the North American Appalachian mountains, they become trapped by a rockfall. During their attempts to escape, they discover something very nasty lurking in the underground labyrinth. Marshall tightens the screws on the viewer with masterful precision, even if the geysers of gore are sometimes so unintentionally comical as to defuse his carefully wrought tension.
While the American version of the ending delivers a good scare, the British delivers a much more thought-provoking and open-ended cliffhanger, while still including the American's scare.