|
Directed by: Neil Marshall Starring: 5 Brit Chicks, One American Chick I will preface this review by stating that I have never understood those who think it is fun to venture underground and into the depths of the earth. I don't understand caving, and probably never will. That said, this movie frightened the living hell out of me. Spoilers will be divulged, you have been warned. The film revolves around the exploits of 6 young and adventurous women as they spend a weekend exploring a remote cave in the Appalachians. When the passage they entered through collapses, they must rely on their wits and each other to make it out alive. Further complicating matters, it seems that they are being stalked underground by something unknown, something truly horrifying. This sophmore effort from director Neil Marshall of "Dog Soldiers" fame is a genuinely compelling exercise in horror. With his previous effort "Dog Soldiers" Marshall managed to craft a tightly paced, cheesy yet amazing werewolf action film. This film has no sense of cheese. Not even a whiff. This is brutal stuff. The film wisely spends almost the first hour focusing on the characters and their relationships with one another before their weekend excursion takes a turn for the worst and heads straight into hell. Marshall wisely shows us the creatures gradually and in brief glimpses at first, making use brilliantly of the headlamp's worn by the cavers. The sense of dread in the movie is overwhelming. For those who are afraid of caves, being underground or dark places in general this movie might induce spasms of fright. For a majority of the film a huge part of the screen is enveloped in darkness as the women feebly move around with only their headlamps or weak little flashlights to lead the way. It is the tension of not knowing at all what is hiding within the dark part of the screen that drove me up the wall. The creatures were pretty well done, although sometimes the make up looked too rubbery. They behaved and looked literally like Gollum half-way through his transformation. Very creepy. The score was good and was only overbearing at one point throughout the whole film. The acting was pretty even all around, not bad, not great but somewhere in the middle. The two lead's handled their stuff pretty well, and proved that Ellen Ripley and Vasquez are not the only tough chicks in the universe when it comes to dealing with loving scary as poo poo creatures. In the end, this film sorta reminded me of the first "Alien" film, in the sense that is is a lot about a game of cat and mouse within a confined claustrophobic space with creatures of undetermined origin. While it is not as good as "Alien", it is definately up there in terms of great creature horror films of all time and great horror films that have been released over the past years. Even though it thouroughly frightened me, I enjoyed every minute of it, and cannot wait to see what else Neil Marshall has stored for us cinemagoers in the future. RATING: 4.5 PROS: Extremely well paced, terrifyingly claustrophobic, decent performances, excellent cinematography and directing. CONS: Effect's sometimes iffy. ADDITIONAL INFORMATION: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0435625/
|
#
?
Jul 26, 2005 20:18
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 24, 2024 03:19 |
|
|
I loved this movie, 5 easily. I obsessed on it a little and read whole IMDb threads to try and get some things straight and I'd like to see it again with the various interpretations of what is going on in mind. If you haven't seen it, do so before reading my speculation, because a lot of fun is to be had here working the film out afterwards, trust me. SPOILERS FOLLOW. Basically I love it because you can just take it as a straight genre film and have fun, you can take it this way even to the extent that she actually escapes in the end and the last shot just represents the torment she feels for the rest of her life. Or you can figure she dreamed the escape and woke up to her mind finally snapping, or that she awoke and accepted her inevitable death with a vision of her daughter, which is more or less what I thought immediately after. But some things bugged me, the sound of a girl giggling in the caves and in the main characters dream early on - the creatures made a lot of pig squealing sounds and throaty deep sounds but you never hear them giggle like a girl. The way the main character and Juno suddenly become seriously tough fighters killing monsters, it just seemed unreal, but I wrote it off at the time as silly genre stuff. The physiology of the creatures is just off - okay so the idea is they were shared ancestors of humans who became trapped and just lost their eyesight - that makes no evolutionary sense at all, especially when you consider they are supposed to hunt on the surface which means they were not trapped at all and so had no reason to lose eyesight or if they were trapped then they would have starved in the first generation and so couldn't exist. The blindness thing is just nonsense for hunting creatures as is their evident lack of smell. Also, the scene where a creature climbs over the prone main character and sits right next to a large flame from a torch, seriously inches from a large flame and it doesn't even notice it. At the time I again put it down to genre silliness, just a thoughtless mistake. In the end though I dont think they're mistakes and I think a lot more thought went into this scenario than I first considered. I can only rationalise these instances by figuring that they depict a delusional / hallucinatory experience of the main character, ie: parts or all of the caving expedition are the deranged manifestation of the main characters survivor guilt. And like I said at the start, I could just write the film off as a genre film and accept that I should have lower expectations of the horror genre. Or, I could take it seriously and deal with the film that way and that's when I started really liking this. My take is that either the whole thing is delusional hallucination from the moment she woke in the hospital (remember the running down the darkening corridor?) or even a coma dream (the coma dream I like less as the main character has no conscious realization that her daughter is dead), or that the caving expedition happened and the main character killed the rest of the party down there, she did after all forget her medication in the cabin. The trouble with the crazed killer take is the scene where one of the girls is dangling from the ceiling above a chasm and is killed by the creatures, the main character could not have reached her to kill her there, so personally I'd discount that theory. The title obviously also means a descent into madness however you take the rest of the films meaning, but the one that chills me most is the idea that we've actually been experiencing a long, complex fantasy of a woman consumed with rage at the friend who had been cheating with her husband and consumed with guilt at surviving her daughters death. In the end she realises she can't handle a return to reality and having to either abide Juno living or face the added guilt of killing Juno herself. The use of a logging truck which screams past in her last obvious dream is loving awesome, the logs look like the copper pipes that killed her husband / daughter, which she already had a nighhtmare about, only the logs are even bigger. So I gotta see the film again with this in mind and see if it holds water, and even if people don't agree with my take on it you have to admit it's a film which delivers when it comes to operating on many levels. 5, 5 loving 5. EDIT: Mind you there's no shred of evidence that Neil Marshall had this "it's all nightmare / delusion" take in mind and is said to deny having this intention. So maybe I'm pulling it out my arse, but gently caress it, I like it my way. clusterfuck fucked around with this message at 16:24 on Nov 27, 2005 |
|
#
?
Nov 27, 2005 15:16
|
|
|
I rented this because the director and (the majority of the) actors are English, yet it is set in my neck of the woods, Western North Carolina. I though, honestly, it would be on the level of The Cave. That right there may make you wonder why I would rent it. But, there is nothing like a good ol' spelunking movie to waste a couple of hours. How was I to know that this would be a finely crafted thriller? Everything about this film clicked for me. The setting, the characters, the premise...it all meshed together. I found it genuinely claustrophobic, frightening, and compelling. And I'm as jaded as can be. Cos the land of love and freedom,
|
|
#
?
Nov 28, 2005 02:48
|
|
|
Substantial film in all respects and a very solid followup to cult favorite Dog Soldiers. Whereas that was more action tongue in cheek, this is far more straight faced thriller material with a solid dollop of horror. Rare to have a film beaten to the punch in theaters by a cheaper film feel so much fresh despite similarities. The all female cast, despite seeming like a gimmick on paper, is well rounded and a good source for the subtle drama that plays out. Although there are a few horror cliches, the majority of the film has strong personalities performing pretty rationally in a stressful situation. The set design works well in their favor, with lots of very natural passages (unlike The Cave's more artificial looking caverns) and well shot scenes in near total darkness. There's one scene which got a sense of claustrophobia so solidly I was seriously uncomfortable during it. The film really ramps up in high gear when the distraught expedition finds the denizens of the cave system. The film spotlights some excellent gore scenes and very solid action from both sides of the evolution/adaptation divide. The creature design was very pleasing as you could see how they got to where they were and their movement acting was very good as well. I'd recommend it as it easily tops most of the horror/suspense that gets a wide release. Rating: 4
|
|
#
?
Nov 29, 2005 06:01
|
|
|
Clunky story, shallow and stereotypical characters, ridiculous plot device mid-way though, bad science, comic soap opera ending. 2.5 (average)
|
|
#
?
Dec 9, 2005 18:08
|
|
|
Deech posted:Starring: 5 Brit Chicks, One American Chick Actually, 3 Brits, 1 Dutchwoman, 1 Swede, 1 American.  I thought it was excellent. Very good pacing, some brilliant shock moments. Brutal goriness. The film manages to combine psychological terror (darkness, claustrophobia, the feeling of begin trapped) with a more direct terror, after the cave dwellers are encountered and the pace ramps up. RATING: 4.5 Adhemar fucked around with this message at 19:16 on Feb 5, 2006 |
|
#
?
Feb 5, 2006 18:27
|
|
|
I really liked this film. Finally, a return to characters with depth, genuinely unsettling environments, heaps of tension and lots of blood. All at once. The claustrophobia is palpable throughout, and the final sequences of the film are absolutely brilliant and very powerful. There is no cop out ending in this one. After the last few years of shoddy genre flicks, half-hearted remakes (Dawn Of The Dead 2004 being totally exempt from this) and yet more teen orientated thrillers, it's very refreshing and encouraging to see something with a bit of substance and love for it's characters in the horror genre. Great film. 4.5/5
|
|
#
?
Feb 7, 2006 02:25
|
|
|
Actually, 2 Brits,1 IRISH, 1 Dutchwoman, 1 Swede, 1 American. Not to derail, but Ireland is not Britain and noone over here appreciates the lack of distinction. As for the film, I found the monsters pretty silly and must agree about their complete lack of any sense other than hearing jarring somewhat. The claustrophic atmosphere made up the greatest part of the horror by a long shot.
|
|
#
?
Feb 7, 2006 20:32
|
|
|
Oh come ON. No replies in the review forum.
Somebody fucked around with this message at 15:20 on Aug 7, 2006 |
|
#
?
Feb 7, 2006 21:25
|
|
|
Well executed formula suspense flick. The couple who sat to my right arrived late, missing the setup scenes, and so didn't feel any suspense during the suspense-buildup phase. "This is boring! I've been here a half an hour and I haven't seen no monster!" exclaimed the guy, but thirty seconds later, his wish was granted and from then on it was pretty much nonstop monster. Everyone left the theater happy.
|
|
#
?
Aug 5, 2006 04:09
|
|
|
Extremely boring thriller that was proported to be a chilling horror. The misuse of gore combined with lovely acting actually made me laugh out loud at parts. (Since the OP warned of spoilers, I will divulge...) The whole seen with Sarah(?) falling into the ridiculously huge pit of blood and emerging angry killing creatures which have evolved to KILL BEARS IN THEIR NATURAL HABITAT but still fail to kill some women in the dark caves, which so happen to be what these creatures are used to and should excel in. The end was even shittier (I saw the US version, but the UK version doesn't sound like it'd save the movie though I daresay it does sound much better.) All in all this movie sucked and don't watch it if you want to be entertained. 1/5 because of the hype.
|
|
#
?
Aug 5, 2006 22:30
|
|
|
I just watched this movie last night with some friends. I wasn't sure what to expect as I hadn't heard much about it but I enjoyed it quite a bit. The director was very good of creating the atmosphere of claustrophobia and fear. When the characters started going deeper into the cave I found myself feeling very uncomfortable. Just the thought of being somewhere like that, having to crawl through cramped spaces in the dark like that made me very nervous. I didn't find myself caring a whole lot for any of the characters, apart from understanding their emotions in that situation. The only character I felt a strong reaction towards was Juno. I found her very impetuous and very self serving. She had taken her friends lives in her hands when she lead them to the wrong cave in hopes to pursue her goal of naming untrampled territory. For the rest of the movie she seemd very caught up in achieving the goal of escape on her own and bulldozing anyone slower. An example is the accidental slaying of the protagonist's best friend. It's true that it was accidental however Juno sees staying to aid the wounded friend as an obstacle to her goal. She does however get what she "deserves" in the end when the protagonist stabs in her in the leg. If we look at most of the movie as being her dream, it's her sub conscious way of dealing with her anger towards Juno for abandoning and slighting her. It also works outside of the dream idea too. Clusterfuck mentioned it seeming unreal that the two women, Juno and the main character would transform into tough adversaries for the monsters. I too agree it it's a silly thing that comes along with this genre. Especially the heroic flourish we hear after Juno saves the two girlfriends? (i thought they were lesbians) of the group. On the other hand and I feel that in the face of the circumstances in the movie, the characters are pushed beyond their normal boundaries by adrenaline and survival instinct. An example of this that comes to mind is the meek,nerdy character of the Hills Have Eyes, becoming tough and determined when faced with the mutants and saving a child. Also the young boy in Friday the 13th #4: The Final Chapter who faces and defeats Jason Voorhees. I don't like the ending for the US version. I could understand her wanting to stop for a moment and let out her grief and the logging truck being another close call. However Juno being in the passenger seat didn't really make any sense unless she somehow had hitched a ride on the back of the truck or it was her ghost/guilt induced hallucination. I watched the original ending and I like it alot more. I think if I had seen the movie with this ending first I would've liked it alot more. The "poo poo still in the cave" idea works alot better. The monsters were pretty well done though they weren't always consistent. They idea that they detected prey by sound "like bats" was pretty stupid. Bats don't need to just hear something they can tell where something is in relation to them using by using noise in a sonar like way. I guess that's just the movie though. A decent movie, should've stuck with the original ending. 3/5
|
|
#
?
Aug 6, 2006 05:10
|
|
|
Holy loving poo poo. I just saw this movie with a friend, and to quote her: "I was so loving scared I think I'm lactating." This really is the scariest movie I have ever seen. I jumped and screamed probably 20 times, and had atleast 3 heart attacks. I liked this movie because although there were a lot of "surprise!" scares, you were equally scared by the sense of claustrophobia the director creates. I thought he did very well in immersing the viewer into the atmosphere the characters were in. If you are claustrophobic in any way, I definitely would NOT recommend this movie. The movie definitely had some faults, though. Like most horror movies, the acting wasn't quite there, and a few of the lines seemed unnecessary or out of place. Also, the ending was kind of stupid. The protagonist almost gets hit by a log truck and then turns around to see the girl she killed's ghost or something. I think it would have been better if she just died. 4/5 Pros: Extremely intense. The scariest movie I think I will see in a long long time. The director does a great job at creating fear in the viewers. Cons: Ending was OK, but definitely could have been better. The acting was mediocre at best in some of the parts.
|
|
#
?
Aug 6, 2006 05:49
|
|
|
I thought it got the job done. The jump scenes were cheap but effective. There were even a few of those good chilling scenes, like when you first saw the monster in the handcam infared. I agree that there were a lot of aspects to the monsters that just didn't add up, but I went into the movie just hoping for a fun horror experience and the movie was strong enough that I overlooked them. To me the biggest drawback was a lack of editing. They could have cut out half of the jump scenes and seriously reduced the amount of fight sequences. By the end I was pretty burnt out of things popping out of nowhere. What was the UK ending? Was there another whole version of this movie or just a different ending?
|
|
#
?
Aug 6, 2006 07:08
|
|
|
edit: whoops, meant to edit a previous post.
|
|
#
?
Aug 7, 2006 15:20
|
|
|
This movie left much to be desired. It was slow moving for the first half hour in which the most exciting thing was a cave collapsing there were way too many scenes of nothing happening except crawling. The characters had no developemnt whatsoever. They were stereotypical, your dikey crazy one, the pre-med intellectual one, the fragile one, her big sister type, and the hard rear end one. The plot was flaky at best in which 5 or 6 everyday run of the mill women seemed to have very little difficulty killing cavemen in their own element that were perfectly evolved to living in If you get scared by people jumping out of the closet at you go see this movie because the closest thing you get to it it when somebody jumps out a cave at you exactly when the music gets a little eery. This movie also just gives me another reason to hate movies with an all women cast because they are directed toward women in general with the soap opera like plots. Don't believe me, how does this sound, It is the plot The herione is the only one you would want to survive because her husband, the only male character , cheated on her but don't worry he died . Oh and don't forget she also hosed over the girl he was cheating on her with. This just so happened to be the girl who killed her best friend in the caves, (you know the big sister type). So you get your cheesy happy ending were the girl you want to live lives, and she gets her revenge on the girl who was sleeping her husband and killed her best friend. 1.5/5
|
|
#
?
Aug 7, 2006 15:52
|
|
|
schwenz posted:
I just got back from what I assume is the US version, as I saw it in a Canadian theatre. Anyhow, can anyone fill us in on the alternate/original UK ending? I loved the movie, although I do agree with some of the above comments about the logic of their success fighting the creatures. Still, during the actual watching of the film, I was totally on edge and loving every minute. I'll tell you, I would never have wanted to go caving before, but NOW, jesus. I think that if you are a person who, like me, has some degree of clausterphobia, you'll find this film extra frightening. I give this one a 4/5 rating. Edit: I totally guessed the UK ending myself, but researched it anyhow. It's pretty obvious, she basically dreams of escape, but wakes up still in the cave. Way, waaaay better. They really should have left it that way. Will v.4.20 fucked around with this message at 21:33 on Aug 7, 2006 |
|
#
?
Aug 7, 2006 21:24
|
|
|
edit; may contain some plot spoilers The most horrific part of this movie for me was the accident it started with. The remaining part of the movie tries to 'obstruct' the viewer, with the main character, in attempting to recover from this horror/loss. It succeeded in many parts; the alarming insight in being trapped, buried alive, locked up, frightened by obscurity, not being alone, but it failed somewhat in the believability of the monsters and the situation in my opinion. (Too perfect chicks cfr. evolving, surviving humanoids in a cave?). Still, a very good horror movie I think, very good atmosphere creation, but the construction of the story is just a bit too thin. I almost imagined it could have been stronger without the monsters. 3.8/5. the wobble fucked around with this message at 02:56 on Aug 8, 2006 |
|
#
?
Aug 8, 2006 01:12
|
|
|
Maybe it's not that far of a stretch that the women were able to fight the naked-cave-monsters. I was thinking about it on the way home from work today. The monsters have probably never hunted anything that was able to really fight back. Yeah a deer will put up something of a struggle, but deer don't know how to use ice hammers as weapons.
|
|
#
?
Aug 8, 2006 01:39
|
|
|
I think the feeling of claustrophobia that pervades this movie is actually scarier than the monsters themselves. If tight spaces really freak you out then this movie will scare the daylights out of you. My basic problem with the movie was that it consisted of mostly cheap scares none of which made me leap out of my seat because you could see them coming a mile away. Every single time this movie got quiet you just knew that something loud was going to jump out at you. This is alright to do maybe once or twice in a horror film and such scenes can actually be used effectually (See The Exorcist III for example, those who have seen it know exactly what scene I'm referring to) but in this movie it happens no less than 3 or 4 times in the first half hour. These are the cheapest kind of scares because on second viewing the surprise is gone. Luckily there is plenty of creepy atmosphere to keep the film going. I'm not going to go into how the monsters may or not be believable because to be honest no monsters are believable since monsters are fictional to believe with, it's kind of like complaining that Godzilla isn't a believable representation of a giant lizard with nuclear breath or that the elves in LOTR don't act like "real" elves. I knew this was going to be a movie about cave monsters and on that front it delivered. What wasn't all that believable were the characters motivations at some points like The heroine killing Juno because Juno accidentally killed one of the girls. Seems like their main motivations should be getting the hell out of there together. I kept thinking "Why the hell did she do that? I didn't think it was too much of a stretch that the women could fight back against the monsters, the monsters didn't appear to be physically stronger than an average person plus the girls had the advantage of knives and other tools. I must mention the ending, it nearly spoiled the whole movie for me. What the hell was that? What the hell was it supposed to mean? Was that girl dead and that was her ghost? If so what the hell do ghosts have to do with this movie? If the girl was only wounded and not killed, how did she manage to catch up with her after she'd just gotten into a car and driven several miles away? Was she in the back seat? If so how did she manage to get there first after being left behind to die? All in all this was a decent horror movie but the ending was a typical b-movie ending, as in "We can't figure out how to end this thing so let's just tack on something completely ridiculous and impossible." They should definitely have left on the UK ending. 3.0/5.0
|
|
#
?
Aug 8, 2006 03:32
|
|
|
Overall I thought this was a pretty drat good horror film. I got more than I expected, that's for sure. It's really entertaining if you don't wrap yourself up in trying to figure out "why" or "how" the creatures came to be. They're goddamn monsters, that's all that's needed for me. I'm glad they only sort of attempted to explain it. There are parts that I found genuinely scary, and parts that made me actually turn my face away from the screen for a few seconds, which takes a lot because I thought I was pretty much desensitized to anything movies could throw at me. The "leg" scene was one of those moments, I just couldn't watch. The film has a lot more "badass" to it than I expected, it was a pleasant surprise. I wasn't expecting the girls to actually fight back, but when they did it wasn't too far fetched, it was pretty much just how I would imagine it. The characters acted pretty realistically, in terms of people who would be trying to secure their survival in my opinion. There weren't many "No you stupid bitch don't go in there" moments. All of this combined with the fact that getting trapped in a situation like this is literally one of my worst nightmares, and would be up there as far as I can think of in terms of most terrible ways to meet your end made this a pretty drat good horror flick. Pros: Good heart stopper, some truly gruesome scenes, pretty good acting really. Cons: If you overanalyze the "why" and "how" of things technically it loses a lot of it's fun. Get past this (like any horror film) and it's a lot of fun. Also in my opinion, the movie should have ended about 5 seconds sooner. 4/5
|
|
#
?
Aug 8, 2006 17:12
|
|
|
With indistinguishable characters, a thudding plot riddled with holes, a ridiculously ambiguous and unsastisfying ending, and a director that quickly abandons frontal lobe scares for brain stem knee-jerking, this movie will only appeal to starved genre fans who like their films to pretend they're much deeper than they actually are, and folks who think a horror movie's worth is measured in bucketfuls of red Karo syrup. 1.5/5
|
|
#
?
Aug 8, 2006 18:19
|
|
|
I'd give this a 2.5 on a generous day. I think the largely indistinguishable characters, (yes, I can tell their voices apart, no I don't give a gently caress enough to distinguish any more than two as separate characters) inordinately long buildup without enough tension, and the occasional logical flaw ruined the overall experience for me. The way I felt after watching this movie was as follows (in no particular order, and spoilered in case these are unfortunately too detailed for non-viewers): 1) So, is the car getaway at the end an American car ad, or what? Did Marshall wake up one morning in Carolina, see a Toyota ad, and decide, "gently caress that concise ending idea I had planned, I'll toss in a red herring scene. Hey, maybe I'll seem deep, too!" 2) The struggle for survival fight scenes were cool to me, because they were very visceral. They alone are the largest merit of this film. Rockaxe for the win. 3) Anyone else notice that some scenes of this feel intesnely death metal/Dungeons and Dragons-esque? Slaying orcs and goblins in the underdark with shaprned bones and horns, or improvised adventuring tools. I bet there will be a Dethklok song on the way immediately. 4) I like the British. I love the Irish. I just had Dutch people stay with me. I want to be an American. That said, I hated every single one of these women, and I hoped unrelentingly for the first hour that their annoying voices would become death wails as soon as possible. I was rooting for the bad guy when he takes Holly out the first time. All in all, skip the first 58 minutes and assume a bunch of young-to-middle-aged women go cavecrawling. Pick it up from there. You'll have a good time thereafter. You aren't gonna get treated to any proper scares in this; it's all kneejerk, so just enjoy it for the ending scenes and then forget it. 2.5/5
|
|
#
?
Aug 10, 2006 05:03
|
|
|
I loved this movie. And by loved, I mean was so terrified by it that I slept with the lights on and my heart didn't slow down for a good 30 minutes after we got out. The whole idea of being in a small cave is intensely frightening to me, and creatures waiting just outside your light makes it even worse. Even before the monsters showed up, I was horrified by the tiny passageway they passed through, especially when the water sloshed and you could hear no echo, it was like it was inside and god there's no room to move and you're stuck and WHY ARE YOU THERE WHY GET OUT I honestly didn't think about the implausible aspects of the monsters until I read these reviews. Yeah, there were some silly things about them, but god drat, THEY ATE HER ALIVE they ate her alive people and that let me tell you is disgusting and awesome. I'm really disappointed to learn that they changed the ending; although I wanted her to survive the final shot was a little much for me. All in all, go see this. It will gently caress your poo poo up and it is all so worth it.
|
|
#
?
Aug 10, 2006 06:14
|
|
|
The UK ending: The heroine escapes, and makes it back to the car. She drives the car recklessly down some roads and then pulls over crying while it's raining and all you can hear is the windshield wipers. A semi flys by making a big loud honk, and then she looks over to see Juno (or Juno's ghost as she's all blueish grey). The second that happens she wakes up. She's still down in the cave and the dream of escaping was just an illusion. Accross from her is her dead daughter with a birthday cake with lit candles. The camera pulls away and the daughter is gone showing a crazy blood covered woman deep in the earth staring at nothing. I found the little girl noises an interesting twist on common auditory hallucinations that people have while caving. There's tons of water systems running through most caves and the constant trickling, dripping, scraping, noises are easily transformed into sounds of children, goblins, dragons, farmers with shotguns, etc when you're all alone in the dark. I loved the moive and aside from some silly rock clibming bits find it to be one of the scariest movies I've seen (the other two being open water and event horizon.) PlasticSun fucked around with this message at 15:39 on Aug 14, 2006 |
|
#
?
Aug 11, 2006 16:16
|
|
|
This movie illicted an actual, honest-to-god scream out of me and for that, it was worth the price of admission. I never understood clausterphobia until watching this movie. It practically had me standing up shouting at the screen "IT'S TOO SMALL GO BACK!!!" All in all, it was a fun movie with some interesting subtexts shot through with some scary poo poo. I really like the idea of that UK ending. If it had ended that way, I would have given another half-star. It never totally had me, though, and I don't know why. I got rather exhausted by the nth SUPERBLOODSCARE. Definitely above-average, though and I would see it again. As it stands, it was a good, solid, fun night at the movies. 3.5/5.
|
|
#
?
Aug 12, 2006 17:32
|
|
|
I hated this movie. The plot was pretty good but the characters absolutely bugged the poo poo out of me and I was glad to watch them die one by one. 2/5 for annoying the hell out of me all movie
|
|
#
?
Aug 15, 2006 03:53
|
|
|
Why are you people posting spoilers without using tags? The point of this is for people who haven't seen the movie yet to see if it's worthwhile.
|
|
#
?
Aug 15, 2006 04:47
|
|
|
I thought this was very well done. Scary and intense. I liked the characters too, I thought they were interesting although the transformation of the 2 female leads into Linda Hamilton Terminator Juggernauts was a bit cliche, but in the case of Juno it wasn't too much of a reach since her character was athletic and adventurous, capable to start with. Wife didn't like it, thought the cave dwellers looked dumb and ripped off of Blade (patriarch vampire). I told her that basic Nosferatu look way predated the Blade movies. As far as the specific issues of whether it made sense for the original presumably trapped miner/cavers to have lived for generations and become mole like but yet still had access to the surface, I think it's best to not overthink stuff like that too much.
|
|
#
?
Aug 15, 2006 05:10
|
|
|
I enjoyed it. The girl power scenes were a bit much but the cave scenes were excellent. I totally never want to cave dive now; not that I had plans before this movie but it really seems like an insane adventure to partake on. I went with a friend who saw the UK ending which was nice considering how the American one made no loving sense at all.
|
|
#
?
Aug 16, 2006 03:30
|
|
|
There's so much I want to say, but I'd have to spoiler it and I hate seeing a review covered in black bars because it's pretty much useless to anyone who hasn't seen the movie. But here's what I will say; The pacing is fantastic and has to be the most well paced movie this year, beating even M Night(if you didn't like his latest film you at least have to admit he has a knack for good pacing). It has good villains and they illicited a lot of fear. I thought the first full reveal and the choice of timing was perfect. Although it ends well the very last second of it blows rear end, hard. One of those pointless cliff hanger endings that's just there for a jump and pissed me off. Now, for my views of the film. The monsters look like complete ripoffs of the lord of the rings goblins. I work for a place that makes pretty good looking copies of those makeups and I couldn't believe how close they looked. It's pretty classic Nosferatu since they're basicaly batboy. Also, I want to stress that I don't see these as being generations of miners or anything. They'd have to go way back to cromagnon man and neanderthal and be a third branch of humanoids existing in this single location. My only real gripe is how easy they died. The movie would have been so much better if the first one they faught didn't get his poo poo kicked in after a minute of fighting. Basically a bunch of chicks exterminated a new species in the span of an hour, lame. They should have made them harder to kill, or get wounded and escape, for at least the first couple encounters. If just to make them look a little stronger and therefor scarrier. All in all, a good horror flick, and probably the best one all year. it gets a 4 edit: sp Jackbedead fucked around with this message at 19:33 on Aug 18, 2006 |
|
#
?
Aug 18, 2006 19:28
|
|
|
The movie was alright except the COPIOUS amounts of blood...I simply loved it. About the UK ending Wow, I would love that ending. I was somewhat disapointed with the cheasy "I escaped" ending and would love a good tragic ending. I'll have to acquire the DVD when it comes out with its alternate ending (hopefully) Rating. 3.5/5
|
|
#
?
Aug 19, 2006 03:50
|
|
|
3.5/5 An overall entertaining movie that is better than most horrors out these days, but still seriously lacking due to plot holes. As the OP already warned of spoilers, I won't use the tags. The man gives a gift to the girl he's cheating on his gf with to be worn in clear sight around her neck and has who it's from written right on it. Girl with a hole in her neck survives for awhile and then manages to have something of a conversation. These creatures are blind and can only follow sounds to their prey. They don't even have echo location. This is somehow enough for them to regularly hunt prey above ground. Prey that arguably has more advantages in their natural environment than these otherworldly creatures. They have evolved to rely on their hearing (almost solely their hearing), yet it isn't sensitive enough to hear anxious breathing less then a foot away. The tummy rub rubs death had me laughing out loud. Entertaining, but no good for hard chills. The cast is 99.9% female and they still somehow manage to have the most important decision in the movie based on a conflict surrounding a man. Sara is uncertain and confused by what should-be-dead girl is telling her, but the fog seems to clear when she finds out that her late bf cheated on her with Juno. I think it's fair to say that little fact is what sets the end of the movie. I have to agree with the earlier poster. The end car get away scene looks like a car commercial.
|
|
#
?
Aug 27, 2006 19:27
|
|
|
PlasticSun posted:The UK ending: The heroine escapes, and makes it back to the car. She drives the car recklessly down some roads and then pulls over crying while it's raining and all you can hear is the windshield wipers. A semi flys by making a big loud honk, and then she looks over to see Juno (or Juno's ghost as she's all blueish grey). The second that happens she wakes up. She's still down in the cave and the dream of escaping was just an illusion. Accross from her is her dead daughter with a birthday cake with lit candles. The camera pulls away and the daughter is gone showing a crazy blood covered woman deep in the earth staring at nothing. I thought that she did escape and the cave scene was an illusion? It wasn't clear to me. Anyway, the UK ending confused me but it was still pretty scary. The monsters were pretty hosed up. 3.5/5
|
|
#
?
Oct 17, 2006 11:01
|
|
|
Were we all watching the same film? I thought this was an utter pile of poo poo, and so did my financee, we could feel no sympathy or really tell the characters apart, all the "scare" moments were seen coming way before they happened. Add that to the crap, rubber mask looking "monsters", and most of the fight sequences being very choppy and impossible to follow. Mount this on a bad script, some lacklustre acting on all parts, and a plot that makes no real sense, and you have one lovely, lovely film. 1/5 DesperateDan fucked around with this message at 23:32 on Jun 3, 2007 |
|
#
?
Jun 2, 2007 09:45
|
|
|
This movie had all the worst aspects of a modern horror movie. Lame, "jump" scares. Bad-rear end chicks. Shaky camera and over-use of darkness (not lazy filmmaking, for real). The ending was cool but the the buildup to it was lovely as hell. 1/5, just for the ending.
|
|
#
?
Jun 3, 2007 16:09
|
|
|
I had no idea about the U.S ending, its sounds like a massive cop-out wonder what the censors didnt like about the uk ending? I loved this movie though, wasn't expecting monsters either... thought they handled the claustrophobic aspects of the horror brilliantly and the ending was a real kicker.
|
|
#
?
Jul 17, 2007 19:10
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 24, 2024 03:19 |
|
|
The movie was fantastic until she wounds Juno or whatever her name is and leaves her to die, then the faux ending and the real ending. She grew as a person and developed a lot in the film coming up from the weak girl at the start of the film to switching roles with the 'bad rear end' Juno. It would have been perfect if both of them got out and an ending similar to the end of Dog Soldiers time scenario, maybe with a news clip. Instead we have an illogical killing of a friend and a psychotic death by blowing out a torch or something. That ending made me really angry. The acting was good in my opinion the characters captured the environment well. But this isn't gonna scare me away from caving/spelunking/tunneling. While generally I'm really against jumpy sequences in fight scenes. In this scenario I thought it really emphasised the chaotic nature of the situation. Pure fight for survival where the creatures come up against the humans who unleash their beasts.
Adolfo Castro fucked around with this message at 14:24 on Jul 29, 2007 |
|
#
?
Jul 29, 2007 14:21
|
|