Genres

Visitors Review

winterds 2012-05-24 08:20:12

Good Thrilling Excitement With a Twist

I was able to see The Cave before the film was pulled from the moviecircuit. I recommend the film if you are a serious fan of horror inregards to unusual creatures, cave exploration and well done action.Also, this film gives a very interesting tilt on the vampire legends ofeastern Europe. Once I heard the film took place in the Carpathianmountains of Romania, I had to see it. This fact gave the film moresubstance on various levels than just a simple bug hunt in the dark. Ialso suggest the film for DVD rental and purchase once it becomesavailable. It looks like Cole Hauser is moving right up the ladder as aup and coming actor of substance. I'm sure his father(Wings Hauser)isproud.

2012-05-23 13:35:26

All the horrors of spelunking and diving rolled into one!

This is a classic action-adventure horror flick. From the opening scene you're already placing your wagers on the 'guess who survives' game. You can just tell where it's going, and, yes, for the most part who's going to die. There's nothing that sets this movie apart from all the other horror movies. And yet, I still enjoyed it. It did suffer from the too-dark phenomenon sweeping the horror film industry, which is a mark against it, but on the up side it didn't have a lot of gore for the sake of gore (like Saw or Hostel). The fact that the monster was not really shown also gives it high marks. The characters weren't great but they weren't awful, so that was a wash.I'm torn on the very end scene being interesting or just a gimmick, so I'll leave that out of my evaluation. At first I had the 'oh cool!' reaction, but the more I think about it the more I think it was just that old, trite, last movie scene from so many horror movies.I enjoyed watching it, but I don't think I'd ever watch it again. It's an average movie that you'd probably have fun sitting in a group of friends talking and watching (your own MST3K group!) but nothing special.

Walter 2012-05-21 02:57:51

Its a Cave In......a total Cave In.

A group of cave divers/explorers are called in to help find a possible hidden environment in Romania via a huge underground cave system. Great concept but this movie is brutal.I felt like i was watching a combination of "Pitch Black" meets "Alien" meets "The Poseidon Adventure" in a cave system, but without the real cool characters and really scary creatures. The cave system is a cool concept because anyone even the most experienced cave explorer can get lost and be a permanent fixture in any cave system....throw in some unknown mutated creatures and youd think you would have a very entertaining film, but NO! the opportunity for a great original story is thrown out by the utterly mediocre acting and some of the situations the cave explorers find themselves in is ridiculous. For example Piper Perabo (from Coyote Ugly fame)her character is climbing a very high rock wall inside the cave and is attacked by the monster, yet she suffers no more than a scratch and she does this truly unbelievable jump from her saftey rope to another rocky wall face....I was like, Yeah Right!, Hey I know its just a movie but come on, she dies anyways, why not have her body mangled and shredded by the walls of the cave as she falls? The monsters were hard to make out, i mean, i couldnt tell what part of the monster i was looking at. Another strange thing is that these folks are miles and miles under the ground yet some of the cave "rooms" are strangely lit. The only positive thing about this movie was the underwater cave shots, and i watched the special features on the DVD where they let us know that all the underwater shots were filmed in High-Definition. I rented this movie because the cover looked cool with the HUGE monster opening its mouth ready to swallow everything, nope, that monster does not even appear in the film. This film was very disappointing, especially when its revealed that the monsters are actually mutated humans that have been trapped underground. I was wondering why the monster had a damn tattoo. I put this movie on par with the movie "The Core" for its lame characters and stupid scenerios. "The Cave" stinks and its not bat crap you smell, its this horrible, slow movie where the end is neither original or even rewarding. Skip this film....if you want your cave exploration fix, watch something on the National Geographic channel instead.

ricwing 2012-05-20 17:33:21

a "teaser" so so but watchable

To sum it up Argggg! as a huge fan of SciFi movies this is a just a"teaser". its true it does follow along the lines of Pitch Black andpossibly Aliens although not nearly as good as the later. I liked thefresh new concept of the movie,its nice to see something original comeout.The beginning really captured my attention,as I love storiesrelated to vampires or the likes. the ending is cool, It really sparkedmy imagination for awhile. The underwater photography is excellent inparts. BUT thats about all i liked. The shots inside the cave wereoften to dark to see. And the monsters although kinda cool were notshown enough. All in all it was hard follow what was going onsometimes, with the dark shots and so so acting. thats why it got onlya 4 rating from me. My wife hated it as was expected LOL, but to me itwas watchable.

2012-05-13 15:24:14

The Cave is no Rave! DVD featurette is MUCH better.

This film begins promisingly enough. We're introduced to a fairly intriguing premise and the whole notion of exploring a gigantic cave with a humongous - over 90 miles long - river could have been compelling. It should have been compelling. Too bad it's not.As other reviewers have noted, the cinematography, sets, props and general all around eye candy are fantastic. The main cave set is a triumph of craftsmanship and Disney should hire the builders to ramp up their park attractions. But basically this is all the ride you'll get. Expert camera work, great visuals and a set worthy of an Oscar - if Oscars just for sets were given out. Soon the "action" what there is of it, feels forced, and one soon feels claustrophobic. It's like you're trapped along with these goofs and you start to feel the pressure too, but that's not a good thing. Basically, like many disposable movies, the characters aren't developed. Here, they're practically non-existant. I suspect all work, energy and money went into building that awesome cave set, flying the actors over to Romania and hiring top notch cameramen. The paper thin screenplay remained strictly an afterthought.I gave 2 stars because of the DVD's "INTO THE CAVE" featurette. This is the real story of cave explorers. After the first minute, you'll forget all about the stinky, fake cave goofs and wanna see more of the real thing.

2012-05-13 00:21:07

Oh its awesomely bad!

August/September 2005 brought about some awful sci-fi movies to the box office, and the Cave definetely holds a spot as one of the worst. Though it was actually not quite as bad as A Sound of Thunder, the Cave was laughably bad, and belonged more on the Sci-Fi network than in theaters.The concept here is really simple, and the look of the movie is pretty decent. However, the acting and the story just destroy everything that the movie had going for it. I stayed through the credits to find out the one actor's name. Rick Ravanello puts on one of the absolute worst performances in movie history! The dude could not act to save himself! The movie goes from bad to worse during the rock-climbing scene. The sequence of events in that scene really don't make any sense at all, and I seriously burst into laughter at how bad the whole scene was. This really was a rather awful movie. I'd recommend it to anyone who likes bad movies...there is a lot of humor to be found if you don't take it seriously. But as a whole, this one gets the big thumbs down.

BA_Harrison 2012-05-10 19:44:06

The Descent meets Aliens meets Pitch Black.

An immense system of partially flooded caves is discovered beneath theruins of a Romanian church, hidden deep in the Carpathian mountains. Ateam of expert cave divers are called in to help explore the system,but become trapped underground after a cave-in, caused by an unseencreature. As the team attempt to find another way to the surface,one-by-one they become victims of the terrible toothy monsters thathave evolved in this self-contained, subterranean eco-system.The Cave doesn't succeed as well as the films that it so closelyresembles, lacking the emotional wallop of The Descent, the relentless,edge-of-your-seat tension of Aliens, and the grittiness and sense ofdread of Pitch Black; but even though it can't quite match up to itspeers, the film is an enjoyable piece of B-movie monster mayhem thatdoesn't deserve to be ignored.Although the script admittedly doesn't try to do very much new with itsoverly familiar premise, and doesn't hold up too well under closeinspection, the film does feature enough really nasty looking creatures(courtesy of Patrick Tatopoulos, who also worked on Pitch Black'smonsters), flashy CGI effects and claustrophobic action to still makeit worth a watch (let's face it, over-analysing the plot to a cheesymonster film is a waste of time, anyway).The cast (which includes Cole Hauser, Lena Headey, Piper Perabo andLost's Daniel Dae Kim) all give adequate performances, but the realstar of the film is perhaps the cave itself, which looks veryimpressive thanks to Ross Emery's excellent cinematography, whichbrilliantly captures the other worldly majesty of the waterloggedgrotto; in fact, if there wasn't the chance that I could drown or beburied alive a mile beneath the earth's surface (or even eaten bymonsters!), I might be tempted to take up spelunking myself! (Notreally—the sofa is my magical realm to be explored!).

2012-05-10 08:05:43

GQ goes spelunking

Yet another PG-13 "horror" film, which means you know it has been "sanitized for your protection." At least this time we have young adults in peril instead of teens. I realize I am being cynical, though it is difficult not to disparage a film when every one of the actors and actresses is young and good-looking. There is nothing wrong with including young and good-looking individuals in a film; it certainly makes the viewing experience more pleasant. Yet, how seriously can I take a movie when there is no good reason for casting this way other than to cater to a certain an audience that cares more about the attractiveness of the cast than the content of the film? This certainly seals its fate as an average (at best) film because we know artistic vision and profundity have been relegated as inferior to superficiality. It is too bad, really, because this story had potential. After the first couple minutes, during which Romanian soldiers stumble across mosaics depicting winged creatures of death in an ancient cathedral, I thought it might turn out to be better than its mediocre reputation. Over the next few minutes, however, I began to get that sinking feeling as the hunky, bland cast was introduced. It then became apparent this would be another clichéd, formulaic film. I could forgive the fact it is more or less "Alien" set in Earth's underground rather than in space because the production values here are top-notch. Aside from the relatively high budget and the occasional swear word, however, there isn't much here to distinguish it from the average made-for-the-Sci-Fi-Channel flick. At least some good came from watching this, though, as it renewed my interest in watching "Alien" again.

jleeburch 2012-05-08 01:27:00

This movie was fantastic! Well worth watching!!!

I read a review for this movie and felt compelled to respond. Thereviewer said that the characters were two dimensional and that theydidn't seem to care if someone died... he said they didn't even shed atear... well, watch again, dude, coz when one of the characters dies,the leader of the expedition, Jack, has to force himself to blink backtears so that he can continue on to lead his team and the people in hiscare out safely. You may have missed the point of some of the movie,and missed entirely the relationships.The two main characters, Jack and Tyler, are brothers, for example.Jack is the eldest, and it is easy to see that Tyler is the one who isa bit unpredictable, he's exciting and takes risks, but because of thathe's the best. However, because he does take risks, Jack cant put himin the situation to use his skills the way he should be able to. who isit, though, that everyone ends up calling to first??? they have a verystrong, loyal bond as brothers, and are both willing to die for eachother but completely unwilling to let the other one die.I've seen The Cave a few times now, and loved it every time. I saw itfor the first time at the cinema and, although I'm a big horror moviefan, I even jumped occasionally. It isn't quite as scary the second andthird time around, but go into it with an open mind and be willing tojust let yourself be taken along for a ride the way the characters are.Look at what the actors have done with their characters in a shortspace of time. They're not given the kind of opportunity to sit downand tell the viewer who they are and what they're all about, they havea limited time to do that and the rest of the time are trekking throughdifficult waters and trying desperately to stay alive.Watch the movie, it is more than worth the ride!!!

2012-05-07 16:12:49

Solid horror entry not as bad as claimed 2 1/2 stars

There aren't any gems in "The Cave" but it's also not quite as bad as everyone claims it is. The film swipes its premise from a half dozen other horror films but for a change this doesn't take place in outer space but inner space--in the underwater caves of Romania. It's not quite as memorable as "Pitch Black" or "Alien" (which itself ripped off its plot from "It! The Terror from Beyond Space" among others) and is worth a rental if nothing else.A group of divers take an expedition into a group of underwater caves, are stranded when a cave in cuts them off from the surface. They discover that they are being hunted by a nasty predator and desperately try to find a way back to the surface before they become fish food.Cole Hauser ("Pitch Black")stars in the film and the direction is brisk. The underwater footage some of which is actual footage shot by a second unit diving team is beautiful. The film seamlessly combines film and HD video shot on some of the dives. The impressive sets certainly hold their own and make the film much more impressive than it really is.The image and sound quality are top notch. We get two featurettes one of which discusses the underwater filming and the divers that do this for a living. It's actually a superior featurette. The second is on the creation of the cave creatures. It's interesting because the approach is much more about why they designed the creature the way they did than how. We also get two audio commentaries. One with the writers who discuss (quite diplomatically I might add)the compromises they had to make to the script to bring it in on budget and that includes the elimination of a couple of truly outrageous sequences as well as more character development and a romantic subplot. The director and producer give a much more production orientated focus to their commentary track discussing production challenges they faced in the making of the movie. "The Cave" isn't great art nor does it pretend to be. It's better than something you might see on cable and some some truly stunning stunts and set pieces that make it a worthwhile rental. Don't expect great art or a big dose of originality and you'll enjoy "The Cave" for what it is--a derivative rollercoaster ride of a movie.

ghoulieguru 2012-05-04 06:21:23

Unlucky Spelunkers

Here's a crazy thing... Before this movie started on the DVD, theyshowed the MPAA rating. Next to the PG-13 rating it said: Rated PG-13for creature violence.Creature violence! How great is that? The MPAA used to just base theirratings on potboiler terms like: violence, nudity, sexual situations.Now they've actually given creature movies their own rating system! Iwonder if this was the first movie to be rated for creature violence. Inever noticed it before, but I thought it was noteworthy. Anyway...In THE CAVE, a bunch of wacky spelunkers decide to descend into somemysterious caverns and awaken something terrible. It's a fairlystandard set-up for a horror movie, but what THE CAVE has going for itis a fairly interesting little twist.The movie starts off in standard fashion. The story of Ten LittleSpelunkers who start disappearing one by one. In the brief glimpses weget of the creature, we are led to believe that it might be some bigmutated bat. I know what you're thinking, sounds pretty lame. I was inthe middle of rolling my eyes and picking at my navel lint when themovie took an unexpected turn.Okay, now here comes a big spoiler. If you don't know what the twist isand you want to be surprised, stop reading now. But if you're curiousas to why I went from thinking this was a fairly typical creature movieto actually enjoying it, then read on...See, the monster that's prowling around down in the caves is actually aparasite that gradually transforms its host into a monster. The guy whogets bitten/ infected is played by an actor that I've seen before but Ican't remember his name. He's kind of like the poor man's Tom Berenger.Anyway, he gets infected and starts transforming into something morethan human. His fellow spelunkers are all worried about him as hispupils turn all funny and his hearing gets extra sharp. If you rememberhow that one Marine went all buggy in THE ABYSS, it's kind of likethat.In horror movies you usually either have an external enemy, andeveryone has to band together to fight this horrible thing. Or theenemy is within, and everyone has to figure out who the killer isinside their little group before they all get sliced and diced. Thishorror movie has a little bit of both. It's about an external enemy andthe enemy within. That's what I liked about it.Luckily for our plucky spelunkers, budget Tom Berenger decides thathe's going to go against the creatures that infected him and help hiscave-climbing comrades get to safety. Rounded out nicely by an endingthat brings to mind SILENCE OF THE LAMBS, DARKMAN and THE FRENCHCONNECTION (and if you aren't intrigued by those three completelydifferent references, you probably need to take some Gingko), THE CAVEwinds up being a notch above your basic creature flick.And it's rated PG-13 for CREATURE VIOLENCE! I can't get over that.

Ezrael 2012-05-04 02:50:22

Great fun, leave your brain at home and go see it!

I read a couple of poor reviews for this film prior to seeing it, butI've never let that bother me, so we went to see it anyway and thoughtit was great. Don't go looking for Oscars and you will enjoy it, itentertained me and I left the cinema feeling like I hadn't wasted my£4.The film was a little predictable at times but that's no problem, youjust have to take it for what it is, an action/adventure. There are some tense moments towards the end, as the cast gets thinnedout along the way by the 'cave dwellers'.It also reminded me of why I never took up cave diving as a hobby.Leave your brain at home and go see it.

2012-05-03 09:25:01

The cave in

What a disaster. Don't waste your time with this one. Nothing grabs you in the beginning, the plot(if any) is poor, and yes there are some nice sets, but that doesn't make a good movie.

trashgang 2012-05-02 11:25:41

overlooked creature feature

The Cave. Over here when it came out you could buy it already in the'sales'. Strange, because I had a lot of fun with it. It's a creaturefeature and naturally some reviewers compared it with 'Alien'. Indeed,it did remind me, the creature, of Alien, and the way the story goesdid also reminded me of Alien, but which flick made after Alien aboutmonsters didn't? But I guess being released in 2005 it had to fightagainst another kind of creature feature 'The Descent'. The way thatflick was promoted, well, The Cave was doomed (no pun intended). Itisn't that gory, but some shots really deliver the red stuff. And theacting was good too. It has a bit of an open ending that can bediscussed. But also, it didn't take that much time before things gowrong, after 20 minutes things do get wrong. It's one you won't regretputting it into your DVD player.

2012-05-01 16:19:56

Yet ANOTHER crappy caving movie!

This review is from: The Cave (Widescreen Edition) (DVD) I'm a caver. I have been for close to thirty years. So when an occasional "caving" movie comes out, you know I GOTTA see it. Not because I have ANY hope someone will actually do research, or heaven forbid, actually consult REAL cavers. (NOT "spelunkers" mind you). I'm just curious. (Drive past that frightful auto accident and try NOT to look!) Sadly, but predicably, this one does not disappoint to disappoint. I will say I wish cavers looked like that! Cripes, we ARE a gnarley bunch! Heck, I wish "I" looked like that! But alas, reality being what it is.....sigh! In it's defense, I will concede there was some good cinematography and nice diving scenes. I just wonder if anyone involved in the sets actually went INTO a cave and researched formations. I think not! It was not the WORST caving movie I've ever seen. (That honor would go to "The Cavern".) At least "The Cave" was shot fairly decently. I will say it's worth a look see. As for fellow cavers, buy the movie, get your grotto members together, buy copious amounts of adult beverages, and get ready to have a HOOT of an evening. Just make sure you buy "The Cavern" to go with it. That one is a HOWLER! Enjoy! BEWARE HODAGS! Now they're in the water!

sholtz-2 2012-05-01 01:12:43

Worst movie I've seen in a long time

Worst movie I've seen in a long time. For it to be truly scary for me,it has to be somewhat capable of happening. Unfortunently, even thoughfungus can cause mutations, these mutations would not be beneficialevery time (wings, seeing at night, claws, all the other stuff)...theymight be beneficial once...and even then, the mutations have a prettygood chance of killing you if the mutation can change you that much.Also, the mutations wouldn't be uniform...not all the humans would havechanged in the same way. Horrible horrible movie. The only thing this movie did right biologically speaking is that theydidn't have the monsters reproducing viable baby monsters. One, thatmuch mutation would most likely make a person or animal be veryinfertile or incapable of carrying a fetus, and Two, even if themonsters could carry a fetus, it would come out as a human, unmutated,because the parents were humans that were unmutated when theydeveloped.Also, the monsters looked quite reptilian, and I didn't see anythingthat could pass as a mammary gland, so the baby would starve to deathanyway. Unless the fungus mutated the child right away (i.e., infectionset in right away).So, in conclusion, if you are a biology major (as I am) or have had ANYcourses in biology and paid attention, you most likely will want toshoot yourself in the face by the end of this movie.If it would let me score this movie as a zero instead of a one, Iwould.

2012-04-28 23:40:47

Typical, and Then there were none type fare.

The cave did have some scarey moments with good cinematography but, major flaws abound also. The dialogue of this movie was just horrible the scientists spoke to each other, like high school kids. The climbing action was a bit outside of the realm of normal physics as well,jumping to stationary rocks while swinging at 30 to 40 miles an hour. The monsters were creepy looking, sort of like The Alien. Overall if your looking for a scarey cave monster type movie stick with The Descent,which is pretty much the same formula but much more jump out of your seat.

zylexiaa 2012-04-28 12:47:55

An Excellent Horror Movie!

I am really quite happy that I went and saw this movie because it wasreally good! There was a good story line, and they made a good choiceon choosing the people that they did for this movie. The Cave is a goodhorror movie because the producers tried a new spot, an underwatercave, as the main set. In the Alien Legacy the aliens were in outerspace, in the Abyss they were an underwater colony near the ocean floorat several thousand feet. The cave was a first in putting the alienunderground, but including water. The best thing I liked about thismovie was that the leader of the group gets scratched by one of thesegiant bat-like creatures and starts to mutate into one of them. Theending also hints at a sequel, and I hope that the producers rise up tothe challenge and make a sequel!

Aaron Butler 2012-04-28 04:07:20

Why Was This Film Made

They must be able to write off movies they know are going to lose money. This idiot story where everyone knows there are things that will kill you out in the darkness they insist on traveling on their own. Oh wait. Even though they are way underground every cave seems to have incredible illumination. I did like the idea behind the monsters but this was the only good thing about the movie.

Tommy Nelson 2012-04-27 15:14:02

Pretty awful.

I went to see this movie not expecting much and I ended up getting awhole lot less than I expected. Some divers get trapped in anunderwater cave with a couple poorly animated monsters. You don't givea care about any of the characters and you don't root for the monsterbecause the camera work is so bad you never even see it. It's not scaryor thrilling. This movie, instead of going in to theaters, belonged asa straight to DVD Fangoria release. The only redeeming qualities wereit kept my attention enough and the actors and actresses were notterrible (Though they weren't good either). I recommend you skip thisone.My rating: * 1/2 out of ****.