Six women go on a caving holiday, and things go wrong. Hundreds of feet underground, with no hope of rescue, it is up to them to try to save themselves and find their own way back to the surface.
This year, I have been running a pretty strict "no spoilers" policy. This presents me now with a quandary.
There's a part of the movie I have to at least mention; it could reasonably be described as being the point of the movie; it's even mentioned on the DVD box... But I honestly think you're better off not knowing.
So, I'm going to employ invisitext.
Any time you see an orange box like this one here, highlight to read.
If you choose not to highlight, you'll get a 'lite' version of the review, if you do highlight, you'll get what the distributors of the movie deem a spoiler free review, but one that says more than I would have wanted to have known going in.
In fact, for best results, stop reading now. Right now. Go watch this movie cold - it'll be worth your time.
CAUTION: INVISITEXT DOES NOT WORK ON MOBILE DEVICES - IF YOU ARE READING THIS ON A MOBILE DEVICE YOU WILL SEE THE FULL VERSION.
Still here? fine. You were warned.
So; the actual synopsis of the film is:
Six women go on a caving holiday, and things go wrong, on top of that, they are hunted by a tribe of subterranean flesh eating humanoid monsters. Hundreds of feet underground, with no hope of rescue, it is up to them to try to save themselves and find their own way back to the surface.
It's a full hour before the monsters show up, and even before then this is one scary-ass movie; in a way it would have probably been an even better movie without the monsters.
It's incredibly well paced; From the offset, before we even enter the caves, there are regular jump scares, this serves brilliantly to train us to never relax - once we're underground, this in turn makes every tight crawl through narrow tunnels utterly nerve wracking, then when things do go wrong, things can be ramped up and up, until it seems things can't get any worse then... monsters!. Superb!
The Direction (specifically the DP work) is amazing; I don't think I've felt so uncomfortable during a movie since the first time i saw Saw. I've been potholing and loved it - but this made me as claustrophobic as all hell and had me thinking "people do this for FUN?"
The sets are amazing (I found out after seeing the film that not one of the caves is real)
On the bad side; of the 6 women, 3 have an annual "adventure holiday" of which the potholing is the latest (we also see them rafting).. the other 3 are clearly only there to bulk up the numbers and play cannon fodder. Also, I would have ended the movie 5 mins sooner (the US edit, apparently, does end 1 min sooner, which is an improvement). Oh, and there's a glance and a line here or there that hints at a little subplot I assume was cut, as it never gets directly addressed, much less resolved - but that really is minor.
Other than those minor flaws this movie was brilliant. I Will be checking out the sequel, and soon!
I know I'm only halfway through the month, But I'll be shocked if I'm not back here on Halloween marking this one "Pick of the Year"
TRAILER CONTAINS SPOILERS:
Loved this movie as well. Agree on all points. As someone who has a problem with heights and confined spaces it was like a horror movie all on its own before the 'ramping up' shall we call it?
ReplyDeleteThe sequel may not be as good as this one, but I did enjoy it as well. Its well worth a watch. Although warning, the ending to the second one is something you will probably want to rewrite.