The Cave Movie Review - by Ed Francis

The Cave

by Ed Francis

Hollywood has really gone downhill lately. It seems that every horror involves a blue-eyed Irish wet blanket, a serial killer that only kills in dreams/ over the Net/ teenage girls etc. Or a monster that lives in dun dun dun! The water! The devious buggers! But the latest genre to poison the Hollywood water tank seems to be the cave genre. Tight, claustrophobic areas, a hidden killer monster, a group of action hero scientists...... but they don't know it yet.... ooh, we're quaking.

The Cave is yet another example of this. The plot (if we can use the term loosely) revolves around a group of monsters who live in a cave under a church (hence the name). Why? Nobody knows. So a group of scientists go down there, and yet shock-horror, they only take one ugly one, who dies pretty quickly. Why? Nobody knows! The Russian scientist is the first to be killed.

Is it because of his accent? Is it because his intelligence alienated
him from the group? Why? Nobody knows! Anyway, he's dragged under water by an unseen monster (Jaws? Who?), and of course, his genius pals go looking for him. After some tight scrapes, they come to a rock wall. One of the geniuses decides to climb the wall. Without a helmet. Or pads. Why? Nobody knows! This is Hollywood! Safety second! Anyway, this buxom bevvy is brutally slaughtered by a flying monster in a scene that is grossly reminiscent of a strange bestiality scene. Why do the monsters want to rape as well as kill people? Nobody knows!

Then, we discover the group's leader has been infected by a monster's spore! Why did no-one notice his weird eye-infection that indicates the condition earlier? No-one knows! Soon, he starts to become a monster! So of course he volunteers to take the monster while the others escape. A monster flies straight at him. He leaps at the monster, knife poised. That exact moment, disbelief, horror and nausea all suspend in one terrible CGI second. Then, it all come crashing down, big explosion, the end. Or is it? No, because, shock horror, ANOTHER SCIENTIST WAS INFECTED! And she goes and disappears into a crowd.... cue sequel......... The Cave 2: Out of the Cave. I'm pre-ordering popcorn.