Shocks in the Dark

Rating: 8/10 (11 July 2005)

I'm glad I went to this without really knowing anything at all about it. It begins in a gentle way until the main characters life becomes completely and suddenly unravelled. Cut to the future and we see her and her friends united together to go explore a cave system in the Appelachian mountains. What begins as a journey of discovery and team work descends to a journey of survival and self-preservation. The claustrophobic possibilities of caving are captured pretty well in this movie and certainly the camera angles must have been pretty hard to work out. There are shocks aplenty here and gore comes as a more than hefty side-salad. The characters are barely more than two dimensional and their decision making and rashness within the confines of the caves leaves a lot to be desired at times; in fact it borders on the laughable to see people running full speed around a cave with no protective headgear on - I'll say no more. However flaws aside, this is still a good ride. The use of women as the thrill-seeking risk takers makes a change from the muscle bound 'jocks' that we're used to and indeed later on leads to the questioning of the validity of tighter emotional bonding between women while also exploring and exploiting the exposure of women to predators in the dark. This is something that probably plays on very real fears for women in the audience but I can only speculate. As a man, I quite enjoyed it. It's sharp, shocking and packs a punch that keeps you rolling from the start of the action to the pointed finish. I tried caving once and enjoyed it. If you fancy trying it, it's probably best to try it before you watch this movie!