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The Cave
USA/Germany 2005
produced by Gary Lucchesi, Andrew Mason, Michael Ohoven, Tom Rosenberg, Richard S. Wright, Neil Bluhm (executive), Judd Malkin (executive), Marco Mehlitz (executive) for Lakeshore, Cinerenta, City Productions, Cineblue
directed by Bruce Hunt
starring Cole Hauser, Eddie Cibrian, Morris Chestmut, Lena headey, Piper Perabo, Rick Ravanello, Daniel Dae Kim, Kieran Darcy-Smith, Marcel Iures, Vlad Radescu, Simon Kunz, David Kennedy, Alin Panc, Zoltan Butuc, Brian Steele
written by Michael Steinberg, Tegan West, music by Reinhold Heil, Johnny Klimek, creature and make up effects by Patrick Tatopoulos Design Inc, visual effects by Luma Pictures
review by Mike Haberfelner
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Available on DVD! To buy, click on link(s) below and help keep this site afloat (commissions earned) |
Always make sure of DVD-compatibility!!!
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30 years ago, scientists discovered a cave system beneath a church deep
in the mountains of Romania, but then a land slide buried the church, and
them with it, under tons and tons of rocks.
Now: Scientist Doc Nicolai (Marcel Iures) hires a team of
divers/climbers led by Jeff (Cole Hauser) just like a military platoon to
help him explore the cave because ... beats me, anyways, the good Doctor
has a pretty female biologist, Cathy (Lena Heady), at hand, who will
eventually serve as love interest for Jack's brother Tyler (Eddie
Cibrian). The biologist is there because ... nope, sorry, this also beats
me.
Anyways, as these stories go, The whole group dives and climbs and
hikes into the cabe system when suddenly a cave-in cuts them off from the
outer world, and now they have to go searching for a way out. Thing is,
there are monsters in this cave, and they are actually the people from the
landslide 30 years ago mutated into, well mutant monsters (looking like a
cross-breed of a gargoyle and the creature from the Alien-series
of films - well, so much for originality). Of course, the mutant mosnters
are all very evil and before you know it they have killed Doc Nicolai, and
Strode (Kieran Darcy-Smith) and Charlie (Piper Perabo) from Jeff's team,
and one of them has wounded Jeff, who slowly starts mutating into a mutant
monster, but still he - always the good guy - is hell-bent of getting his
platoon out of here, even if some of the team don't trust him and pay for
it with their lives (not at his hands, and the full-grown mutant monsters'
hands).
Eventually, everything leads to a showdown where Jeff takes on the
mutant monsters in one-on-one combat and pretty much defeats/kills them
all, and finally he causes another cave-in to eliminate the monsters
(including himself) for good, but not before showing the survivors of his
group - his brother Tyler and biologist Cathy as well as the token black
guy (Morris Chestnut), exactly the threesome everyone would have guessed
on being the survivors right from the beginning - a way out.
Thing is, Cathy might be a mutant too ...
A horror film set in the confined space of a cave system, now that
might be an interesting idea ... but unfotunately, director Bruce Hunt
gives a hoot about the horror aspects of the story and instead treats the
whole thing like an action spectacle - which causes the whole thing to
fall flat on its chest. That the actors are uniformly terrible and are
forced to play utterly uninteresting and unlikeable characters making
their way through a bloodless script of course doesn't help the film one
bit either, and the whole military drill with which the group is run is
simply repulsive and does further strip the film of its effectiveness. On
a positive note, the finale involving Jeff fighting the mutant monsters
and causing a cave-in is pretty impressive (if silly), but that's much too
little much too late.
Rather not watch it !!!
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