By By Jim Shea
If you’re looking for a horror, a suspense, an adventure and science fiction-you won’t find it in The Cave.
The concept for The Cave could have brought a nice and fresh film to close out the summer: a group of cave explorers take on a network of underground caves in Romania, only to find a terrifying creature lurks down there. The only problem about that premise is this movie meets the same fate as most B-movie horrors. The Cave is written as a stereotypical survival horror film that gives a truly dreadful viewing experience.
The execution-where to begin-leaves a huge dent on The Cave. There’s a long list of actors and actresses who are just forgettable since they look like they didn’t even want to star in this movie in the first place. With Piper Perabo of Coyote Ugly being the only recognizable celebrity in The Cave, all you’ll really care about is who gets killed and when they get killed.
The first good chunk of The Cave deals with the mythology of this particular cave system and assembling the team. Once the team enters the underground cave-surprise-bad things start to happen. From there on the creature makes more of a presence, while one-by-one a team member dies. Now, if you find that plot to be original, then you’ve been avoiding horror movies all your life.
Another major flaw for The Cave has to be the carbon copy script most horror movies follow. The scenes deal with getting from Point A to Point B with one or more team members getting killed by the unknown creature, or by accident when one of the members is crushed to death by the cave closing in. At no time will you be interested with the plot because everything else is irreverent.
You can’t put blame on the director for bringing The Cave to an early watery grave. Director Bruce Hunt’s only experience in Hollywood comes from being a secondary-unit director in the Matrix trilogy and 1997 movie Dark City. Looking at Hunt’s resume, you can see he had some pretty big ideas for his directorial debut. However, writers Michael Steinberg and Tegan West aimed this one to be a survival horror film which doesn’t quite work out all the time. (In fact, when was the last time it actually worked?)
It’s only hearsay, but a good number of people who have actually watched The Cave in theaters fell asleep in the chairs. Jeremy Kaplan of White Plains, N.Y. said, “After I woke up (from falling asleep watching), the movie was still playing, so I got up and left.” While it’s not confirmed whether or not The Cave can cause drowsiness, you know that is not a good sign.
What’s sad is The Cave really could have been a decent, if not very good film. For starters, it could have changed from being a typical kind of horror film into more of a psychological thriller. Second, they could have hired a cast people would have actually been interested in watching. Additionally, they should make sure the actors’ performances will get viewers to pay attention. Finally, don’t allow a director and/or writer to helm an ambitious project like The Cave for their first stab at directing. The only positive is the movie succeeds in making you jump for a couple of scenes, but aside from the little glimmer of light, everything in The Cave just-well, caves in.
Final Grade : D –
Mediocre acting and a first-time director makes a “would have been movie” fall apart. (Image courtesy cinema.com)