Alright so, I’ve started doing a thing where every weekend I make time to watch a horror movie that I wasn’t interested in before, never heard of before, or otherwise passed up. I believe this will be a good way for me to expand my “horror movie fandom” and broaden my horrific horizons. I’ll write about them in this blog, and do my best to keep an open mind. This article may contain spoilers!
Foreword
Alright so, people have been telling me to watch this 2005 thriller for years, but I just haven’t ever given it the time. Overall, I’m glad that I chose to watch it, but I wasn’t as thrilled with it as I have been with some of the other movies I’ve spent time on recently.
Director/writer Neil Marshall explores all kinds of fears in this film. If you’re claustrophobic, have a fear of the dark, or hate heights, you’re bound to feel some discomfort while watching this film.
However, for traditional horror fans like myself, you may find it hard to sit through the roughly forty-five minutes of crawling, climbing and conversation that happens before you ever get to see a monster.
Don’t get me wrong, this film had its positives. The time spent on character development makes it easy to feel for the group as they start to drop, and once the carnage (finally) starts, it’s fairly brutal and suspenseful.
Quick Summary
When a group of adventurous young women decide to explore an undiscovered cave, they find that “undiscovered” doesn’t necessarily mean “uninhabited.”
The girls fight against the dark, cave-ins, themselves, and a group of bat-like humanoids as they try to find their way out of the cavern.
Review
As I stated above, this film takes awhile to start being horrifying. However, once it does take off, it stays pretty action packed up until the ending (which is sort of a twist).
If you like slow-start movies, then you will definitely want to check this one out, but for me, it was honestly just too boring for too long.
The Horror!
These half-bat-half-human baddies (known as “crawlers”) were by far the best part of this movie.
While they are completely blind, the “crawlers” use sound to hunt down their prey and, judging by all the bones and blood in the cavern, they do a pretty good job of it.
With the ability to climb basically any surface, it would seem that these creatures would have no problem devouring the group of spelunkers, but you will have to watch for yourself to see how that goes.
Should You See It?
If you have the time.
Again, a lot of my friends love this movie, so it’s possible that you will too. The last half-hour or so did make the film worth seeing, but I was so fatigued from waiting for the blood bath to start that I was almost too tired to enjoy it.
I would say that you should give this movie a chance on a night when you don’t have much else to do, and feel free to let me know what you think.
Thanks for reading and check out the trailer below.
B.G.'s Horror Blog 