Bought with a package of previously rented movies from a local rental shop, I chose this one and sat down to watch this movie with no expectations and no prior knowledge of it. Just the title.
As often the case after watching a clunker, (as such I judged it to be) I logged on to IMDb to see how bad it fared in the popular opinion. Imagine my astonishment when I see it popularly rated at 7.4! What did so many other people see that I missed? Who's off base, me or them? What did I fail to appreciate, if anything?
Now I have no problem with a virtually all female cast. No misogynist here, I can handle women being depicted as strong and assertive, in fact I find it a refreshing approach to what has so often been the more common role of women in horror movies, that of obligatory pretty screaming victims. What seemed to turn me off from taking the movie seriously at an early point was the sense of insincerity in the actresses. Now that I'm aware that it is a British movie, I wonder if perhaps it's a subtle cultural difference in the way the cast is directed or in their presentations, but I was always aware that they were acting. It was palpable. Then the mood was further broken by the standard low budget horror movie ethos, that the lead characters should make implausibly foolish decisions, which no one in their right mind would make, but which permit them to be killed in succession. EG: The lead spelunker left the guide book behind, so that they could all explore a 'new' part of the cave system! She is obviously a skilled and experienced climber/caver and yet she decides to deceive her companions by leading five people into a cave system she knows nothing about! When did she intend to tell her 'good friends' that she has led them into the unknown so that they could 'all discover it together'? Were they all going to giggle together over the prank around a wiener roast?
Then the cave creatures. They can skitter around on any surface even the ceiling, like spiders, showing that while blind they are still able to detect what is around them, yet they cannot detect living, breathing, hearts beating sweat smelling frightened people who are laying down on a ledge an inch in front of their faces as long as the ladies don't move! And despite the creatures' obvious great strength and agility in being able to zip around like squirrels, they get killed by the dozen by these exhausted and injured slow moving humans. Yeah, that could happen.
Then there are the quite unlikely plot twists and the odd moralistic rationalizations. -It's alright for the lead protagonist to deliberately mercy kill one of their number, but wrong and evil for the one who originally injured her to have done so purely without intent while surrounded and attacked by creatures! -It's a good idea for one of two people who are fighting for their lives against great odds, to deliberately injure the other and doom her to a grisly death, before they have reached safety!
And the final twist? Not horror inspiring but eye rolling. Of course by that time I'll admit I'd become thoroughly jaded with the show and it seemed more like banana peel humour, someone pulling your chair back as you are about to sit down, than any horrifying development.
No, the movie had turned me off long before this point, and I'd resigned myself to getting a laugh or two out of yet another badly done B flick. That so many thought so much better of it still amazes me. Wes Craven might have made a better movie out of it.
As often the case after watching a clunker, (as such I judged it to be) I logged on to IMDb to see how bad it fared in the popular opinion. Imagine my astonishment when I see it popularly rated at 7.4! What did so many other people see that I missed? Who's off base, me or them? What did I fail to appreciate, if anything?
Now I have no problem with a virtually all female cast. No misogynist here, I can handle women being depicted as strong and assertive, in fact I find it a refreshing approach to what has so often been the more common role of women in horror movies, that of obligatory pretty screaming victims. What seemed to turn me off from taking the movie seriously at an early point was the sense of insincerity in the actresses. Now that I'm aware that it is a British movie, I wonder if perhaps it's a subtle cultural difference in the way the cast is directed or in their presentations, but I was always aware that they were acting. It was palpable. Then the mood was further broken by the standard low budget horror movie ethos, that the lead characters should make implausibly foolish decisions, which no one in their right mind would make, but which permit them to be killed in succession. EG: The lead spelunker left the guide book behind, so that they could all explore a 'new' part of the cave system! She is obviously a skilled and experienced climber/caver and yet she decides to deceive her companions by leading five people into a cave system she knows nothing about! When did she intend to tell her 'good friends' that she has led them into the unknown so that they could 'all discover it together'? Were they all going to giggle together over the prank around a wiener roast?
Then the cave creatures. They can skitter around on any surface even the ceiling, like spiders, showing that while blind they are still able to detect what is around them, yet they cannot detect living, breathing, hearts beating sweat smelling frightened people who are laying down on a ledge an inch in front of their faces as long as the ladies don't move! And despite the creatures' obvious great strength and agility in being able to zip around like squirrels, they get killed by the dozen by these exhausted and injured slow moving humans. Yeah, that could happen.
Then there are the quite unlikely plot twists and the odd moralistic rationalizations. -It's alright for the lead protagonist to deliberately mercy kill one of their number, but wrong and evil for the one who originally injured her to have done so purely without intent while surrounded and attacked by creatures! -It's a good idea for one of two people who are fighting for their lives against great odds, to deliberately injure the other and doom her to a grisly death, before they have reached safety!
And the final twist? Not horror inspiring but eye rolling. Of course by that time I'll admit I'd become thoroughly jaded with the show and it seemed more like banana peel humour, someone pulling your chair back as you are about to sit down, than any horrifying development.
No, the movie had turned me off long before this point, and I'd resigned myself to getting a laugh or two out of yet another badly done B flick. That so many thought so much better of it still amazes me. Wes Craven might have made a better movie out of it.