From the moment this begins we're greeted with extremely bad characters, dialogue, framing (especially with the MTV-style hype machine), scene writing, and direction. I don't know if the actors are equally bad themselves or if they just come off poorly in light of everything else here that's so troubled, which noticeably includes highly questionable sequencing, editing, and cinematography, and tawdrily transparent "special effects." Was this purposefully made to be so absolutely obnoxious and unlikable? Is it intended to be a horror-comedy, and just entirely fails at being funny? I like some of Arhynn Descy's music, but it's not necessarily used well here, and on the other hand some select music cues and sound cues are just tiresome. I guess the costume design, hair, and makeup are nice, but these aren't quite the most important facets here. Let's be honest, 'The tombs' is just rubbish.
I guess there was some potential in the concept of a haunted house/scare attraction in which something evil genuinely manifests. The additional narrative elements laid on top - making the characters celebrities, the notion of some reality TV publicity thing, the cable channel "reporter" out on the street, and so on - are gauche, overcooked, and ill-advised. Though it wasn't perfect, Gavin Michael Booth's 2014 horror-thriller 'The scarehouse' was fairly well made and is leagues above and beyond this empty-headed schlock. This is only 82 minutes long, but it's so dull that I kept falling asleep in the middle of it, and it took more like five to six hours for me to watch. I suppose the practical effects and stunts are alright, and maybe the art direction. It's hard to especially care about these aspects, though, in light of how rotten the picture is otherwise. In fairness, the film picks up a bit in the back end, but that only gets us so far.
There were possibilities here, perhaps, but 'The tombs' is so wretchedly overdone in every capacity, with no tact or nuance to be found, that even its scant best ideas are reduced to nothing; even at 82 minutes it feels overly long. It's not enough that I made the decision to watch, but I had to be punished for that decision by effectively having this take up several hours of my evening, and that takes away what infinitesimal point of favor I may have been prepared to bestow for the concept. However it is you came across this, whatever your impetus may be for watching, I strongly advise against it. You'll regret pressing "play" as much as I did. There are countless better features you could be checking out; find anything else instead.
