not completely woeful...

Rating: 5/10 (27 November 2006)

I am completely on the fence about this one. On one hand, I watched it and the time passed quickly (usually if a movie is terrible you find yourself looking at your watch only to discover that you are only 30 minutes in hand still have well over an hour left) However, with this film I never felt the need to roll back my sleeve and peek at my watch, and by the time it was over I was stunned to find that I had been sitting in the cinema for almost 2 hours. That is a good thing. However, having said that, there are many movies that pass the time, but there are only a handful, in my opinion, that pass the time and leave you wanting more. That is something this movie didn't do. I had read some reviews of this film before I saw it, and all of them were very positive - describing its 'freshness' in a world full of clichéd horror flicks; mentioning its 'originality' when compared to the eons of other scream-fests that pollute the screens these days. So I went in expecting something out of the ordinary, and was not delivered anything remotely like that. I actually found that this movie employed all the old tricks - to such a degree that my cynical friend and I were muttering to each other at moments of 'high suspense' words to the effect of "oh, no...don't go around the corner, there will be a monster there...oh, look - she went around the corner and there was a monster there..." etc. And lets not mention just how similar this movie is to "THE CAVE" - but thank GOD they didn't have a plot-line whereby if you are bitten by one of the creatures you slowly turn into one. There were some pretty decent scares in it, though - and the suspense in parts was built up very well. The sound design was top-notch, as was the lighting. The make-up, too, deserves a mention as I found the 'creatures' to be quite well done, and the 'blood-n-guts'elements were very believable and achieved what they were there for (the gross out the audience). Some of the set construction was great, but there were points where it looked so much like a set that the suspension of disbelief was suspended no more. The story structure was nothing special - again, it relied on a very familiar formula that you can predict if you have seen a 30 second teaser for the film - a group of women go for a fun time in a cave, they get trapped and have to find a way out, as they do so they encounter creatures who dwell within the cave and they will all likely die as they try to escape... The acting...well, it wasn't great. The lead gave a fairly plausible performance. I believed her in all her scenes, though I did question the likelihood of some of the choices her character made during the film but that is more of a scrip failing than the actresses! But the rest of the cast were not quite as good. You can tell with most of them that they are quite new to the 'acting' thing. But none of them were terrible - lets just say that they were the next level above 'spanish language Soap actors'. Music was okay...perhaps at time it was a little too over-scored for what was needed. If I had been scoring it I would have done something a lot less orchestral. I would have stripped it right back which would, i think, have achieved a far creepier atmosphere for the film. I would definitely say that I don't feel I wasted my time watching this movie...and I would guess that (come a rainy day) I would probably watch it again if I had absolutely nothing else to do. But it wasn't exactly the genius I was expecting.