The Cave (2005)

 From the performances to the writing to the cinematography to the special effects, "The Cave" is a rickety, ramshackle junk heap of a monster movie, the type that wouldn't even pass muster with die-hard viewers of the Sci-Fi Channel. Bloodless, scareless, eventless, and nearly violence-free, the film is a PG-13 kiddie movie posing as a horrific creature feature, and a shoddy, cheap-looking one at that. That it is finally seeing release on the final weekend of August (well-known to be a studio dumping ground for such quality-deficient fare) comes as no surprise. How it got so far as to see the inside of multiplexes nationwide, however, is one of this year's most perplexing cinematic mysteries.

The plot, for what it's worth, is nothing new. A gaggle of explorers and scientists enter a huge underground maze of caves in the Carpathian mountains where, twenty years earlier, several men supposedly met their deaths after falling rocks trapped them inside. At first amazed by the size of the caverns and the complexity with which its animal population has lived and evolved below the surface for thousands of years, the spelunkers soon become the potential prey of nasty winged serpents that are part man, part parasite. In a turn of events that goes nowhere, Jack (Cole Hauser) begins to slowly transform into one of the monsters after being bitten. Now, with one of their own going mad and the rest of the creatures circling in, Tyler (Eddie Cibrian), Buchanan (Morris Chestnut), Charlie (Piper Perabo), Katherine (Lena Headey), and the rest of the paper-thin characters vaguely resembling human beings desperately attempt to find an escape route to the outside world.

Without even a rudimentary understanding of how to create tension, director Bruce Hunt's filmmaking style is to start things off slowly, mosey through a second act that remains slow, and then ends with one of the most lethargic, lackluster anticlimaxes of any movie this year. Eliciting sheer boredom from the viewer, it turns out, is the least of its problems. No doubt the victim of technical ineptitude as well as the restraints of a PG-13 rating no horror film about murderous beasts in a cave should have the disservice of aiming for, the editing by Brian Berdan (2004's "The Big Bounce") appears to have been cut together with an out-of-control chainsaw. So choppy is it that what unfolds on the screen is downright incomprehensible, with characters ending up dead before the viewer realizes they've been watching a killing scene. To make matters worse, the cinematography by Ross Emery is so undistinguished and dark that it's difficult to make much of anything out. Depending on who you talk to, this could be a detriment or the sole saving grace of the picture.

As for the creatures, rejects from 1982's cult classic, "Q," and 2000's "Pitch Black," the fleeting glimpses of them are keenly unfocused to try and hide the low budget. They, as well as the rest of the visual effects, are laughably piss-poor, reminding of a cheesy '70s B-movie that would be heckled on "Mystery Science Theater 3000." All that is missing are the strings (alas, fake matte shots do make an appearance in the unthinkably terrible opening scene's rock slide). Mostly, though, the actors simply give pained reaction shots and run when the creatures are near without director Bruce Hunt allowing us to see what it is they are frightened by. When they aren't doing that, they are wandering around without a clue as to what they should do.

Many of the performers are up-and-comers—Cole Hauser (2004's "Paparazzi"), Piper Perabo (2000's "Coyote Ugly"), Lena Headey (2000's "Gossip"), Morris Chestnut (2004's "Anacondas"), etc.—though one must question just how up-and-coming they really are to have resorted to such a ham-fisted, thankless production in order to pay the rent. None walk away from the wreckage unscathed, and most act as if this were the first time they've been put in front of a camera. The height of intelligent dialogue finds Headey's Katherine observing that a parasite is "ubiquitous."

And then comes the ending, or what passes as one. "The Cave" lurches along so deliberately for the first eighty minutes that, one understandably figures, it is all leading up to an exciting, action-laden finale. Not here. The film simply decides it is over, throws in a ridiculous "surprise" development in the last scene to rapturous audience snickering, and then cuts to end credits. The actual defeat of the creatures doesn't play like an afterthought so much as it feels in retrospect like it never occurred. The whole of the film is, indeed, that empty and forgettable.

How does irredeemable, talent-deficient garbage like "The Cave" ever get greenlit and made in Hollywood? An amalgamation of bad ideas and worse delivery, the film is so inadequate that it can't even deliver a payoff, let alone the basic things one expects from a monster movie, like suspense, fear, ripped body parts, and slime. If there were any inevitable jump scares, even they were so ineffective as to not call attention to themselves. Easily one of the biggest monumental wastes of time to be had in the theater all year, "The Cave" marks the bottom of the barrel of a genre that doesn't require much to begin with. Although proper moviegoing etiquette should usually be abided, this is one case in which lobbing tubs of popcorn and soda at the screen in a riot of audience defiance is a fully warranted option. Apparently made for no one—the target audience of teenage and twenty-something males certainly won't get what they came for—"The Cave" represents cinematic pain at its most mindnumbing and depressing. A turd held up to the flickering bulb of the projector would be a marked improvement. 

 While I am not usually a horror fan, something about The Cave piqued my interest. “In the 13th-century Carpathian Mountains of Romania, an Eastern Orthodox abbey and its inhabitants are destroyed by a landslide. Centuries later, a group of modern-day Soviet and British plunderers search for the long-lost abbey during the Cold War era. They discover the abbey is built above a vast cave system, but it is completely blocked off by an intricate floor mosaic. Trying to blast their way in, they cause a landslide that buries the abbey, trapping the men in the cavern below. They descend further into the cave in hopes of finding a way out, even as they hear strange sounds in the darkness. Some time later, present day, a new team, led by Dr. Nicolai, with his associate Dr. Kathryn Jennings and cameraman Alex Kim explore the site, and the mythology behind the winged demons depicted in the mosaic on the abbey's floor. Local biologists believe the cave could contain an undiscovered ecosystem, so they hire a group of American spelunkers led by brothers Jack and Tyler McAllister – thrill-seeking professional cave explorers who run a world-famous team of divers.” (Wikipedia)

 Yes, this has all been done before but somehow this version brought a little freshness to a tired trope. Of course, the Knights Templar are involved and they’re always good for an ancient mystery. Again, of course, the looters failed to grasp the significance of the mosaic, with images of skeletal winged demons with oddly human faces and very, very long teeth, and the reason the monks had sealed off the cave in the first place. The cast is also good, albeit since this was made in 2005, some had not achieved their fame of today: Lena Headey, Eddie Cibrian, and Morris Chestnut star. The pace is slow in parts which would be logical as they investigate this new ecosystem. However, the science part of this science fiction/horror flick does work in that there are ecosystems where creatures flourish in almost total darkness underwater.

Where the plot got lost is in having too many back-and-forth forays into various tunnels (above and underwater) with people being attacked by the fearsome creatures. But that aside, the special effects are great, and the pace speeds up as the last remaining survivors have to get out. One of the crew members bitten by a creature starts to exhibit signs of turning, which adds to the rising suspense and tension. Schlocky it might be, but you will be sitting on the edge of your seat. The director saved the best for last in that when two of the remaining three survivors meet up, it becomes apparent that the parasite wishes to escape. A fantastic ending. What a pity there has never been a sequel, but this was because (I surmise) it was considered a flop. The movie did not do well, garnering negative reviews and not making much over the original budget. But the photography is really brilliant and although critics slammed the lack of character development, this is an action horror movie. Does one really worry about character development if the cast is being chased by monsters bent on killing them? The movie worked for me. 4/5