Catacombs (2007)

User Rating:

4.5/10   

Directors:

Tomm Coker
David Elliot

Writers (WGA):

Tomm Coker (written by) &
David Elliot (written by)

Release Date:

6 July 2007 (Italy)

Genre:

Horror | Thriller

Tagline:

Below the city of lights exists a world of darkness.

Plot:

On her first trip to Paris, a young woman hits a party in the Catacombs, the 200-mile labyrinth of limestone...

Plot Keywords:

Catacombs | Party | Tunnel | Blood Splatter | Flare

Cast

Shannyn Sossamon	...	Victoria
Pink	...	Carolyn (as Alecia Moore)
Emil Hostina	...	Henri
Sandi Dragoi	...	Liaves
Mihai Stanescu	...	Jean Michele
Cabral Ibacka	...	Hugo
Radu Andrei Micu	...	Nico
Cain Manoli	...	Leon
DJ Kosta	...	DJ
Marcello Cobzarju	...	Customs Officer #1
Marinela Chelaru	...	Customs Officer #2
Catalin Rotaru	...	Customs Officer #3
Tomm Coker	...	Dr. Giggles
Maxime X.	...	Virgin Mother
Conner Gebhart	...	Goat boy

MPAA:

Rated R for strong violence, terror and disturbing images, language, some nudity and drug content.

Runtime:

USA:100 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English | French

Color:

Color

Certification:

USA:R | Japan:R-15 | Philippines:R-13 (MTRCB) | Finland:K-18 | Germany:16 | Australia:MA (2008) | Singapore:M18 | Portugal:M/16 | South Korea:18 | Netherlands:16

Filming Locations:

Bucharest, Romania

Company:

Lions Gate Films

Trivia:

Though the movie is set in France, it was filmed in Romania.

Goofs:

Incorrectly regarded as goofs: After the main character hits her head and awakens alone, she finds the gate that has been chained and locked on the outside. The yellow police tape is on the inside. However, it's not inconceivable that the gate was sealed by the police, and they could've placed the warning tape before locking the gate.

Quotes:

[first lines]
Victoria: My sister sent me a postcard. All it said was, "Come to Paris. It will be good for you." Forty-eight hours after I arrived, she and everyone I'd met were dead.

Soundtrack:

Love Theme from Catacombs

Hope you fancy staring at a black screen….

Few things are as infuriating as great horror settings that are entirely wasted on trite scenarios. Catacombs – immense and ominously dark mazes where thousands of ancient dead bodies are stored – form the absolute greatest locations to set a horrific story in, but the creators of this movie ruined all the potential they were offered here. Surely this could have been an interesting film, but the unoriginal script almost immediately reverts to clichéd situations, chaotic editing and creating false suspense. The emotionally unstable Victoria travels to Paris, following an invitation from her sister Carolyn, and promptly gets dragged into the wild nightlife of illegal parties thrown in the catacombs underneath the city center. When she gets separated from the group, Victoria finds herself relentlessly pursued by a raving madman and they expect us to believe it concerns an inbred and carnivorous monster wearing a goat head mask. You'll notice right away there are several things wrong with the narrative. Why would the partying sister bother to invite such an uptight individual like Victoria to a place where drugs and hideous Techno music reign? Why would an insatiable killing machine exclusively chase isolated party-goers when there are hundreds of unsuspecting easy targets waiting to be butchered in the room next door? Once Victoria is trapped inside the underground labyrinth, "Catacombs" turns into an intolerably boring and irritating film. She just stumbles around the passageways for hours, praying the batteries of her flashlight won't die – which they do a couple of times, of course, and you'll find yourself staring at a black screen throughout very long periods - and suffering ridiculous injuries, like cutting her leg on the spokes of a rusty bicycle. Oh, the horror! This movie is slow and boring, the hectic editing of randomly creepy images is pointless, the soundtrack is god-awful and not a single one of the lead characters is even mildly amiable. Victoria constantly whines and, to me personally, it's a complete mystery why she's such a confused woman. She's young, attractive, supposedly intelligent and free to spontaneously leave everything behind and travel to Europe. So … what the heck is the problem? The French boys serve as dumb screen fillings and Carolyn is positively one of the most annoying horror characters ever. Pink is an even worse actress than singer, for that matter. Throughout almost its entire playtime, "Catacombs" was destined to receive a rating 1 out of 10 from me, but then came the ending which suddenly brought an unexpected highpoint. There are two end "twists", by the way. One is painfully frustrating and caused me to hate the film even more, but luckily there's a second one which turned tragedies around a bit and all of a sudden the film was good enough to increase my rating towards two.