BootDigest Such a frustrating disappointment

Matialth Good concept, poorly executed.

Voxitype Good films always raise compelling questions, whether the format is fiction or documentary fact.

Frances Chung Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

GL84 Heading out to a remote mountain range, a team of spelunkers venturing into a dark, unexplored Russian cave are forced to defend themselves from a terrifying evil haunting the area intent on killing anyone who comes there.This here was a really disappointing and highly underwhelming effort without a whole lot to really like about it. Among the biggest drawbacks here is the fact that there's just nothing interesting at all here in the first half here with this one filled with some of the most utterly bland efforts ever to get a movie more involved in itself. Despite it telling the story of the group coming together and how they're in this particular situation, none of this is in the slightest bit interesting as it goes more for their lame back-story that gets brought up every time out and none of it really offers any kind of enjoyment not only for it being brought up all the time but really just dragging out the first half here to excruciating extremes waiting for something to happen, then it keeps getting brought up once they're in the tunnel anyway which is just an utter bore and makes this so infuriating rather than letting it get more of a hold on who they are. Once they're in the cave itself, this one isn't any better with the absolutely infuriating technique of shooting everything with such extreme close-ups in the already- darkened environment that there's just no way to tell what's going on since we can't see anything going on at all. On top of the darkness, with the entire film covered in fluorescent lighting that gives off the look of dizzying claustrophobia by simply making for an overall disjointed affair not getting anything remotely into this one to tell what's happening as the flashing strobe lights alongside the close-quarter camera-shots further hold this one to a nigh- impossible-to-view series of action scenes that can't tell what's going on. The fact that they don't have even show off the creature at all until the finale is a huge mistake as well since we can't tell what we're supposed to be afraid of while what's supposedly chasing and killing them as the film keeps it as well as the actual gory kills all off-screen to the point of not being able to really get the kind of effectiveness out of them it really should've. This all here holds this one back as the few bright spots here are completely drowned out in this overwhelming sea of negatives as the fact that the cave itself is claustrophobic and chilling makes for a superb setting here to tell this kind of story as the fact that there's constant confrontations with the still-unseen creature makes for a fun time overall here in this kind of setting. As well, the film does get some fun out of the graphic kills when we get to see them, but even with these few positives the flaws are just so much more impactful that they end up overwhelming this one.Rated R: Graphic Violence, Graphic Violence, a clothed sex scene and a shadowy Rape Scene.

narcissus05 Terrible, absolutely terrible. Talking about groves and chasms, this movie hits hard on the bottom of a Norwegian fjord.When the movie is JUST starting, maybe minute 2 o 3, there is a whole sequence (a shot with the group in the background and some bushes in the foreground) that is REPEATED !!! I mean, the dialog goes on, but the sequence is repeated. Incredible. I really doubted whether to eject the DVD right then or not.I didn't.And i regret.The script stinks, the actors are absolute rookies, even the CGI FX are lousy (e.g. one of the worst CGI bonfires in the whole story of film-making where you can even see an elliptic cropping line chopping the flames square).Accept my advice : get as far as you can from this movie.

Robert Klaric I'm not that much of an avid fan of horrors to have watched so many of them, but this one falls so easy into category of one of the worst three horrors I've seen in my whole life.Last few years with blooming of different horror types and genres, especially in department of "japanese horror remakes", a new small sub genre also appeared, so called "cave shriekers" so to speak. Caves are naturally a dark, claustrophobic and eerie places and if you take that and put it into premise of something unknown, dangerous, malicious lurking in the darkness - this usually means a basis for a good horror.Recent movies that exploited this idea were "The Descent" and "The Cave" and now (quite originally named) "The Cavern" follows same footprint. While "The Descent" was one hell of a edge-of-the-seat scary masterpiece, and also "The Cave" wasn't so bad after all - the latter of the three is not even a shadow of what a good horror should be.The Cavern is so predictable and utterly poorly directed you really can't get any chills or goosebumps even in bloodiest of scenes. Director and the crew tried (and failed) to cover it's low-budget origin with some hand-held shots a la Blair Witch Project and general poorly lit scenes often devoured by darkness. In the end it amounts to bunch of people running and screaming most of the film through corridors of cave you can't see, while occasional light from the lamp flickers in a way to cause you epilepsy and hand held camera tries it's best to strengthen the feeling of nausea.It's one thing to try to be minimalistic and experimental developing the scariness factor but here we have no substance nor surprises waiting around the corner, you just know every time when someone is about to die. The end would be disappointing (where cannibalism part isn't horrific in any way, just plain repulsive) if the whole movie wasn't already abundantly disappointing.To keep it short, try to watch chilling and memorable "The Descent" instead of "The Cavern", this is just the type of badly written and executed movie that causes flatline and annoyance at best, instead of adrenaline type of fear all true horrors should evoke.One to avoid.

rixrex Good thing I only paid $1 for this at the Big Lots! What a rotten example of a cave movie, or perhaps it could be said, a good example of how to NOT do a cave movie.The comment from the spelunker notwithstanding, the fact is that a MOVIE about a CAVE has to have more than the glare of lamps in our face to be appreciated. There has to be a minimal amount of back-lighting in order for us to see the activity. Not only did this trash have no back-lighting at all, it barely had any lighting upon the subjects and too often they were shot in close-up even during action scenes, leaving me to speculate as to what actually happened.While this technique is useful in keeping the hideous beast hidden from view, to use it for nearly all scenes is just ridiculous. Those who wish to see a cave as it would actually appear to an explorer, you only need to go into one yourselves. That's reality, but this was supposed to be a movie that could be watched and understood. It wasn't.Do yourself a favor and stick to The Cave and Descent for some good underground thrills.