The Cavern

Possibly the worst movie I ever saw. The person who shot this movie probably never learned not to film directly into a shining light. You can't see anything in this movie. It is way to dark. The parts where you can see something the camera is directed straight at a light source so you get big lens flares. So you still can't see. This movie should have been a radio play or something. Some parts of the movie are actually edited upside-down for some kind of crap effect. Low budget movies can be done so much better then this. And low budget is no excuse for this. An editor should have said something when he started editing and saw that you couldn't see anything. Maybe the makers should have spend some of their low budget on a preview monitor so they could see what they shot. The only good thing about this movie being so dark is that you can't see the awful acting. It also covers up the crappy sfx. People at beginner film schools make better movies then this. Movies shot with handy cams look better then this.

The movie goes something like this: Run around, run around, someone killed, lots of freaking out and then one of the group yells to "Pull it together" or "Just calm down!" Repeat this as many times as their are characters left. In between these things, you get to enjoy blank, black screen. These are not quick but rather several seconds long. I kept thinking what a waste of film every time it happened - yes, it does happen more than once if you can believe it.

I notice other mentioned "Blair Witch: and it did remind me of that in the way the camera was bouncy. However, this movie takes that to the extreme. Every single time the characters move the camera is bouncing. Sometimes so much that you can't make heads or tales as to what you are looking at. That brings us to lighting. Way too dark in some areas. I get that they are trying to make us feel like we are in a cave, but Helllloo... I'm watching a movie here, it would be nice to be able to see.

Then there is the ending. I actually blurted out loud, "Are you kidding me?!" (I was watching alone too). Dumb, dumb. I think the ending was purely the effort of the people who made this disaster to shock us after so much time of boredom with a so called "twist". At this point of the movie you could have seen the "monster" picking his nose and it would be considered a "twist". Truly horrible. You have been warned.

My first post at the IMDb has to (unfortunately) be to warn others not to waste their time with The Cavern! There is no story, no character development, no scares, and no good lighting. It doesn't make any sense. If you enjoy bad acting, people running through small portions of caves, bouncing cameras posed at bad angles, and people screaming while the screen is in complete darkness, you'll love this movie. I could shut the lights off in my house and scream too, and I wouldn't have to pay for the rental. The only thing that scared me was that someone actually made a movie this awful.

... one of the worst movies I've ever rented.

WIthIN, released in Australia as "The Cavern", is for all intents and purposes a very cheap remake of "The Cave". The film borrows elements from a number of genre films; most noticeably "Blair Witch" and "Aliens", yet the similarities with "The Cave" remain overwhelming. WIthIN really should be a complete waste of time. However, despite its many failings, the film is surprisingly entertaining and possesses one of the better "shock" endings in recent memory.

I'm not sure which film came first, "The Cave" or "The Cavern", but they are ridiculously similar. In the former a caving expedition explores an ancient cave in Romania, while in the latter, cavers explore an old cave in Kazakhstan. In both films, the cavers are picked off, one at a time, by evil creatures. I enjoyed "The Cave" as stupid entertainment, mainly due to the stunning photography and impressive stunt work. And yet strangely, it is the absence of these qualities that gives WIthIN its sense of menace. The glossy stunt work in "The Cave", while spectacular to watch, has the effect of distancing the viewer. The caving action in WIthIN is less impressive but, as a result, more realistic.

"The Cavern" gains momentum as the film progresses. At first, I feared I was not only watching a zero budget re-imagining of "The Cave" but also the work of rabid "Blair Witch" fan. The first person perspective camera work, the resulting blurred images and the emphasis on strange noises all seemed very familiar. Thankfully, these annoying devices give way to an emphasis on more traditional gore. The violence is mostly implied but it is effective. If the script was less ridiculous and the actors somewhat more competent, the film could have been quite disturbing as the director definitely has a gift for creating a sense of suspense and claustrophobia.

The main reason to watch "The Cavern" is the ending, which is far more sinister and interesting that the main body of the film. The brutality of the finale took me by surprise, given the rather meek nature of the violence that pervades the rest of the film. The final revelation actually makes no sense at all given the circumstances surrounding the cavers' deaths earlier in the film. However, I was willing to overlook that small detail due to the gloriously exploitative turn of events. If the entire movie had been similar in tone, it would have packed a far heftier punch. As it is, WIthIN is a curious low budget horror film that shows glimpses of a director with some potential.

A virtual carbon copy of The Cave save for a fewer lower budget effects and a slightly different plot. I knew the movie was going downhill when I saw the fake campfire flikering lights clearly reflected in a facial close up of one of the actors. The conflicts between characters and subplots seemed to serve no purpose whatsoever, and added nothing to the film except fewer moments of silence. The acting wasn't as bad as the typical B movie, and there was some believability in their fear, but as professional cavers, they seem to be too psychologically unstable for their chosen profession. Overall not worth wasting $4.50 to rent.