The Cavern (2005)

In 2005 we got Neil Marshalls superior cavehorror The Descent and it didnt take long until the copies started pouring in. One of those was Bruce Hunts The Cave which was mainly discarded as a poor copy, which in my book isnt true since its a nicely shot monstermovie, although with a fairly cliched script. Syfy released Caved in, a movie about giant bugs in a mine, a movie I should watch some day. Another movie that appeared at the same time was Olatunde Onunsamis WIthIN which I saw under the title The Cavern and seriously, it's been a long time since I've seen such a worthless movie without any traces of talent whatsoever behind the camera...

We follow a couple of spelunkers whose only trace of characterization are their weird names (Gannon, Ori etc.) on a trip to Russia to explore a recently discovered cavesystem. As soon as they go down into it one of their russian guides dissapears and they soon find him with his intestines outside his body. Panicky, they try to escape but find a huge boulder blocking their way out, meaning that they have to venture deeper into the caves, hunted by something that kills them one by one until we get a really, really lame twistending.

Oh my fucking god what a piece of crap this is. Osunsami has chosen to shoot this movie on digital video which is a cheap alternative and can be quite good in the right hands but for some reason the filmmakers chose to use some sort of idiotic filter which means that all colours are enhanced and all this results in you the viewer not seeing anything but gigantic compact beams of green and yellow light. Well, at least when you dont see shit because it's totally dark. Osunsamis version of exciting cinematography is to shake the camera as much as possible and sometimes turn it upside down from time to time, not exactly helping you see what is going on. The script isnt helping, only a pile of clichés that you've seen a thousand times before, done better every time. And the ending? Fuck me. The actors are actually rather decent but there's not much they can do with this wasted excuse for a script. Gorehounds can stay away too, there is a halfbloody scene or two with decent makeup, but it's too late by then. I wouldnt recommend this movie to anyone. Every single copy should be hunted down and burned, including my own.