A group of Soviet and British plunderers visit an old, abandoned 13th-century abbey located somewhere in the Carpathian Mountains. The abbey is filled with what can be best described as Lovecraftian carvings, which was probably supposed to be some kind of warning. These guys don’t give a shit, though, and blasts the place with dynamite which makes the floor collapse and throws them into some underground cave system. This all happened sometime during the Cold War, and what happened to these guys? We don’t get to know that, at least not yet.
Fast forward to the present, and Dr. Nicolai and his associate Dr. Kathryn Jennings is leading a team to excavate the former abbey which is now just a bunch of ruins. Once inside they discover mysterious mosaics, and find that the cave system could contain an entirely undiscovered ecosystem. Inside the cave, a guy named Briggs is chosen to scout ahead and he ends up being attacked by something. The others believe it’s just an equipment malfunction, but the huge problem remains the same: the water scooter Briggs used sped off and crashed into the wall, causing rocks to fall down and blocking the way they came in. The only way they can get out now, is by following the river and hoping they find another way out…all the while something else inside the cave seems to be stalking them.
The Cave is a creature feature film from 2005, directed by Bruce Hunt and written by Michael Steinberg and Tegan West. It grossed $33.3 million against a $25 million budget, and the reception wasn’t that great. And I guess it didn’t help that there was another cave-horror movie that came the same year, The Descent, which became a huge hit and is conceivably a better film. That being said, The Cave is not really a bad movie!
One of the highlights, at least for me, were the set design, props and effects. The movie was filmed in Romania (which is known for having over 12,000 registered caves) and some scenes featuring underwater caves where shot in Mexico. Aside from real-life locations there were some really good artificial cave sets built near Bucharest, and a 750,000 gallon tank was created for some of the underwater photography. Yeah, I do have a soft spot which seems to grow softer for each year when it comes to actual real-life locations and handmade props. It just makes a movie look so much more real, which makes it easier for me to actually feel whatever the characters are going through during the film. The actors also had to sometimes spend up to 12 hours a day in a wetsuit, going in and out of the water all the time, and I can easily see how this must have been exhausting as hell.
The Cave plays out more as an action horror and there aren’t really any scares, but it’s pretty solid as far as creature feature films go. Much thanks to the set designs and locations you easily buy that they are truly trapped in those caves. It also takes a little inspiration from real-life incidents of discoveries of micro-ecologies that have been found in deep caves, and especially in Romania. In 1986 Cristian Lascu discovered Movile Cave, where 35 new species were found and this included a 10 cm venomous centipede. Nothing of any gigantic measures, for sure, but there’s always that little thought of “who knows what else could be down there“. At the start of the movie you also get a little bit of a Lovecraftian vibe, but the movie doesn’t really venture there so don’t start expecting some cosmic horror of any kind. This is purely a monster flick, and for this purpose it does its job well. The CGI monsters leaves something to be desired, not gonna lie about that. I’ve seen a lot worse, though, and there are some scenes where they used animatronics and real models which of course looks great.
The Cave is a fun little popcorn creature feature flick, with some good suspense and a claustrophobic cave setting.
Director: Bruce Hunt
Writers: Michael Steinberg, Tegan West
Country & year: USA/Romania, 2005
Actors: Cole Hauser, Eddie Cibrian, Morris Chestnut, Lena Headey, Piper Perabo, Rick Ravanello, Daniel Dae Kim, Kieran Darcy-Smith, Marcel Iures, Vlad Radescu
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0402901/
