Das Geheimnis der Phantomhöhlen

My review was written in June 1986 after watching the film on Lightning video cassette.

"What Waits Below" is a dull rendering of a lost race fantasy yarn. Filmed in 1983 under the title "Secrets of the Phantom Caverns", picture received only a test release in November 1984, subsequently appearing in video stores.

Robert Powell to;ines as Wolfson ("call me Wolf"), a soldier of fortune, first encountered being chased around Nicaragua by enemy troops. He's recruited by military pal George (A. D. Weary) to go to Belize and help U. S. Army Major Stevens (Timothy Bottoms) make the Omega Station there operational (transmitting signals to aid submarines in navigation).

Near the Omega base, a team of anthropologists is exploring caves and being bossed around by Major Stevens. Seismic tests by the army force an opening in the rocks and soon thereafter, army guards are killed and the Omega transmitter is stolen.

Stevens, Wolfson and the scientists search the new cave and find a lost race of fabled Lemurians, styled here as albinos. The Lemurains stole the transmitter because its high frequencey signal was bothering their sensitive hearing. In warring with this lost race, many casualties occur until Wolfson finally escapes and orders the caves sealed off permanently, to leave the Lemurians in peace.

Extremely tame, "What Waits Below" meanders around below ground without the expected action-adventure excitement. Except for a huge snake head that attacks in one scene, it is minus the monsters that could have made this a fun picture for kids.

An impressive cast is wasted, with most of the attention resting on vast caverns (filmed in Alabama and Tennessee locations), augmented by okay mattework and miniatures.

The US military is running a test for a special type of radio transmitter in some caves in Nicaragua.When the signal from one of the transmitters suddenly disappears a team of soldiers,scientists and cave-specialists is sent to the cave to find what really happened.But the cave is not safe.It seems that a tribe of lemurian albino cave-dwellers lives there,who stalks its prey by their body heat."What Waits Below" is an overlooked horror movie,which obviously influenced Neil Marshall's 2005 horror hit "The Descent".Pretty creepy and entertaining horror flick with some suspense and effective scares.The action is fast and the infra-red stalking is a nice touch.7 out of 10.

This British film set in the US is a fine example of what UK cinema used to be before they adopted gangsters & football hooligans as their only subject matter.

Starring Robert "The Detectives" Powell it revolves around a specialist sent into assist the military in setting up a transmitter deep within an unexplored cave complex. Once inside they discover a lost civilisation who aren't all too happy to see intruders.

Robert Powell is excellent and demonstrates again why he has always been a very underutilized actor. The presentation is brilliant as is the score.

Allegedly the movie was filmed a couple of miles down in a real cave complex, if so that is highly impressive though a fair few scenes look like they were more likely located in a studio.

Not sure why this deserved an R rated but regardless is a damn fine effort and an enjoyable piece of British cinema.

The Good:

Looks great

Robert Powell

Decent story

The Bad:

Falls apart a bit near the end

I just finished watching this movie and I must admit I didn't have high hopes. To my pleasant surprise this turned out to be a quite good movie. It wasn't a great movie, but I am very glad I got to watch it! During a test of a low frequency transmitter two men and the transmitter disappear. A team is gathered to search the caves where the test took place. Caves that never before have been explored by man. But, what waits them below they could never imagine.

This story turns out quite original and I think that is maybe what makes the movie so good. The script is far from perfect, but it works. The acting is probably the best with the whole movie. It is generally good. The cinematography could, however, been better. I find it too boring. It's too straight. Though they did a pretty good job in creating the atmosphere and the mood. There were some pretty chilling sequences.

When it comes to effects what can you expect from a 1984 B-movie? Well, they did OK on most of it, except for the monster. It was actually pretty bad and in fact personally I think they should have cut the whole monster. They way I see it, it rather took then give anything to the movie.

I can recommend this movie because of it's story. There are few cliché there. As for the rest of this movie it is OK, but nothing out of the ordinary. However, well worth to watch.

I found the basic story incredible. However, when it comes to horror, stories generally are incredible; and I can think of many horror plots that are worse than this.

The plot to begin with is a bit muddled. It is not clear why these soldiers are in the jungle, and who the enemy at the beginning is, and it might have been a better idea to have the two factions slugging it out in the caves as well as having to deal with the rockman.

Nevertheless, the cast overcome the script, and Robert Powell shows that if you can play Jesus Christ you can play anything.

I am glad that the rockmen never got to talk. It would have been too much if they started speaking American English like the extra-terrestrials do on Star Trek.

All in all, this film is watchable.