Rotten Tomatoes
Cancel Movies Tv shows FanStore News Showtimes

The Cavern

Play trailer Poster for The Cavern R Released Oct 30, 2005 1h 21m Horror Play Trailer Watchlist
Watchlist Tomatometer Popcornmeter
Tomatometer 1 Reviews 6% Popcornmeter 1,000+ Ratings
Spelunkers fall prey to a supernatural force deep within a labyrinth of Russian caves.
Watch on Fandango at Home Buy Now

Where to Watch

The Cavern

Critics Reviews

View All (1) Critics Reviews
Mark H. Harris Black Horror Movies Writer/director Osunsanmi... creates an atmosphere that's cramped, murky and realistic, eschewing an overwrought Hollywood soundtrack. Rated: 3.5/5 Jan 10, 2020 Full Review Read all reviews

Audience Reviews

View All (90) audience reviews
Audience Member The Cavern (Within): 2 out of 10: Blair Witch meets The Cave and gives me a headache. I have something to ask all film schools, could you please teach future directors how to hold a camera steady. Flailing the camera around like Aunt Betty with 12 drinks is headache inducing. Also, a film is primarily a visual medium director may want to point their camera's in the general direction of the action. A movie also requires light to work. Perhaps a light source should be employed so one can see the effect on the screen. I know it is a cave movie, but nothing is frightening about watching pitch blackness for minutes at a time. For that matter showing the film upside down doesn't indicate confusion on screen it means confusion in the editing booth. One last note to the director I'm sure there was a good reason to have a fake CGI campfire. I honestly can't for the life of me think of one. Now on to the screenwriter. Try to make at least one character likable. I'd prefer two or more, but one decent person I can root for or care about might help. Also if you are going to have flashbacks make them relevant to the story. If you are going to have a surprise ending it is probably best if it doesn't contradict every single thing that comes before it. And try adding some fancy spelunking terms to a cave movie. You might have wanted to start with spelunking. The Cavern is a pretty lousy film, poorly shot with a confusing, improbable and anticlimactic ending. Rated 1 out of 5 stars 01/13/23 Full Review Audience Member A group of cave explorers decided to explore an unknown cave. This film is supposed to be a horror film of the genre much like "The Cave" While it's fair to note that I am using an old LCD monitor which is a little dark and my copy of this film was in Italian (which I do not speak) with English subtitles which were badly out of sync, I have to say that the movie was way too dark and contained some serious plot holes. I mean it is so dark that in many places you will likely have no idea as to what is going on. Granted it's a movie about being in a cave so you would expect it to be dark I feel this goes beyond what you would expect. For that I'm giving it two and a half stars versus only two. Despite the shortcomings with the lighting the movie does have a plot and a bit of a story. There is even a twist ending of sorts albeit poorly done and containing some logical errors. Bottomline: Don't expect much. Don't adjust your TV-- it's just dark. Don't expect it to all make sense at the end. You'll probably want your time back after watching this but then again it might also have you searching around for reviews and explanation on the net in order to figure out the ending and what all happened too. That has to count for something, right? Rated 2.5 out of 5 stars 02/25/23 Full Review Audience Member Here are my feelings toward this movie. A few years ago I saw a movie on a shelf in one of those bargain stores and bought it for $2.50. It looked fairly decent by the cover and I even convinced my dad to watch it. I would like to say that this movie isn't worth a single freaken penny and wish that I could somehow get those 80 minutes that it stole from my life. That's how terrible this movie is. I originally thought that it would be better to not waste the time writing a review, but I must warn the people who were more fortunate than me. The Cavern is about as inexpensive as you can get in filming and while Paranormal Activity had an even smaller budget, The Cavern's special effects are so cheesy and clichéd that I question whether this was even an official film. The cinematography will get on your nerves and sooner or later will make you nauseous. Also, the plot tries to disguise itself as original but is in fact just a strange mix of weird happenings, bad ideas, and horrible acting, with virtually no script leading up ending that is ridiculous and with no hint of imagination. The Cavern is deprived of each and every element that makes a good movie and doesn't even have the decency to admit that it's a desperate attempt for entertainment. It ranks as one of the worst movies I've EVER seen! Rated 0.5 out of 5 stars 02/26/23 Full Review Audience Member Crappy angles and lighting, They had a CGI fire for pete's sake. Which should let you know how bad this one is when it comes to cave effects. None of the characters were really likeable, and frankly, I was pleased when some where killed off. The ending was absolute shit as well, And I'm not talking that it ended with a murder and mid-rape, but the fact the last two survivors, wake up, find something that resembles food, and attack it grunting like they are savages, oh and the monster is a human apparently who can take a full clip of ammo and not be phased. I'd have to use so much suspension of disbelief to find this shit likeable that I'm pretty sure I'd believe anything. Rated 0.5 out of 5 stars 02/12/23 Full Review Audience Member "WithiN" or "The Cavern" is an extremely poorly put together horror film that will give you a headache. Easily the worst thing about this movie is the camera work. When we're outside of the cavern, the colours are way over-saturated; when we're inside the cavern, everything is extremely hard to see because everything is either way too dark or we get a flashlight directly straight into our eyes every couple seconds. You'll be yelling a lot during the movie but not because you're afraid, because your eyes will constantly have to adjust themselves to the constant levels of brightness that's going on. It's almost always so dark you have to really look hard to see what's going on or blindingly bright. The movie also feels extremely cheap and poorly put together. There is a scene early in the movie where the characters are sitting by a camp fire that isn't there and was added in post-production. Was fire out of this movie's budget? the effect isn't very good either, you can tell that it was a much larger animation that's been cropped to "fit" the fire pit that's being used because you can see a clear lines that the flames never pass. Perhaps to disguise this or because the camera man couldn't stand still for a second the shots are constantly spinning around the characters as they talk and it will make you irritated to have to constantly adjust where you're looking to see who's talking. We also get some irritating upside down shots inside the cave that make the movie even harder to follow. When it comes to the characters, we get some extremely stupid protagonists who re-write the book on things not to do in a horror film. We have a character that doesn't run when everyone else tells him to run (and not because he's paralyzed in fear), we have characters who have such a low desire to live that they can't put their petty jealousies over dead girlfriends aside to work together and not one, but two plans that are so stupid no one would go with them. Let's say you were being chased by a monster you assume is native to the cave and it's quickly picking off your friends. Why would you ever try turning off all of your lights in an effort to hide while the monster is behind you? Did the characters forget that they themselves can't see in the dark and that this will just leave them open to be attacked? And they try this trick twice, the second time planning on ambushing the creature by luring it into a large cave (instead of say... a small one where you can easily monitor all of the entrances) with one of their own instead of trying to escape while their quickly depleting batteries run out. The dialogue is bad ("The cave is moaning... it is making love!") and the acting isn't very good either (particularly "Domingo") and once the movie is over, you'll realize that there are several parts during the film that make no sense, particularly the way that people are killed by a mysterious creature that is apparently able to teleport. The film also includes a very tasteless rape scene and even the end credits (though they look cool) are incredibly hard to read. There isn't a thing that works in "The Cavern" and you should avoid watching it at all costs. (Dvd, February 28, 2013) Rated 0.5 out of 5 stars 02/08/23 Full Review Japes . If the filmmakers couldnt even properly simulate the lighting from a campfire how did they think they could pull off a movie based out of a cave? The lighting for a dark setting like that is tricky and if they cant even light subjects by a campfire they have absolutely no business taking on a challenge like this. The lighting which was supposed to represent a campfire was so inconsistent and the color temperature kept changing from yellow to dark orange. It was obvious the fire was being simulated. Absolutely awful. In one scene you could even see the film crew and equipment in the reflection of the guy's glasses. Unprofessional. Shouldve had the guy take his glasses off. Also was I the only one that noticed the tents GLOWING? Has the film crew never been camping before? Tents arent bright neon green and yellow and even if they were, one lantern couldnt make an entire tent glow. The writing was cheesy/predictable and the acting was way off. The lighting only got worse as they went into the cave. The flashlights on their helmets put a glare on pretty much every shot. They were a distraction and didnt do what they were meant to do which was to LIGHT the scene. Common sense. I only watched the first 20 minutes but I assume the movie just gets shittier from there. I typed this review from my ipad so I apologize for any spelling errors. Rated 0.5 out of 5 stars 01/08/13 Full Review Read all reviews
The Cavern

My Rating

Read More Read Less POST RATING WRITE A REVIEW EDIT REVIEW

Cast & Crew

Movie Info

Synopsis Spelunkers fall prey to a supernatural force deep within a labyrinth of Russian caves.
Director
Olatunde Osunsanmi
Screenwriter
Olatunde Osunsanmi
Rating
R (Brief Sexuality|Violence|Language)
Genre
Horror
Original Language
English
Release Date (Theaters)
Oct 30, 2005, Limited
Release Date (Streaming)
Apr 16, 2012
Runtime
1h 21m
Most Popular at Home Now