Caved In (2006) (TV)

User Rating:

3.5/10   

Director:

Richard Pepin

Writers:

Michael Konyves (writer) and
Neil Elman (writer)

Release Date:

7 January 2006 (USA)

Genre:

Horror | Sci-Fi

Tagline:

The ultimate threat. The gravest danger. Hidden in the earth.

Plot:

Disguised as extreme adventurers, a group of high profile thieves unknowingly lead a group of wealthy tourists on an expedition through an abandoned salt mine that is guarded by ancient creatures.

Plot Keywords:

Elevator Shaft | Evisceration | Impalement | Giant Insect | Stabbed In The Hand

Cast

Christopher Atkins	...	John Palmer
Colm Meaney	...	Vincent
Angela Featherstone	...	Samantha Palmer
Monica Barladeanu	...	Sophie (as Monica Birladeanu)
David Palffy	...	Marcel
Chelan Simmons	...	Emily Palmer
Stevie Mitchell	...	Miles Palmer
Marius Chivu	...	Hanz
Cristian Popa	...	Stephan
Vlad Jipa	...	Carlo (as Tudor Vlad Jipa)
Razvan Popa	...	Muller
Marius Capota	...	Ion
Dan Sandulescu	...	Luciano
Adrian Pintea	...	Supervisor Frisch

Also Known As:

Caved In: Prehistoric Terror (USA) (long title)

MPAA:

Rated R for horror violence and gore.

Runtime:

93 min

Country:

USA | Canada

Language:

English

Color:

Color | Color (Technicolor)

Sound Mix:

Stereo

Certification:

Australia:MA | USA:R (certificate #41877)

Filming Locations:

Kentauros Studios, Bucharest, Romania

Company:

CineTel Pictures

Goofs:

Factual errors: When the spelunkers are going through the "egg chamber", a giant "queen beetle" shows up, and it's suggested that killing the queen will throw the nest into chaos. The problem with this is that queens only appear among social insects, such as ants, termites, bees and wasps. Beetles are scavengers, not social, and even the isolation suggested in this movie would not produce a queen-based communal structure. Scavengers compete for food; they do not co-operate.

Quotes:

John Palmer: Are you seeing what I'm seeing? Your plan isn't just falling apart, it's being ripped apart! By giant bugs!

A guilty pleasure

OK, it's a stupid movie. A really stupid movie.

But... it has two of my favorite genres of deep-underground and giant bugs. Which I usually enjoy no matter lame the script and acting are.

Atkins isn't exactly the world's greatest actor. Swimming around naked in Blue Lagoon was probably the nadir of his acting ability. Atkins is nice guy, but maybe a little too fluffy for hardcore action roles. But he worked alright for me in this movie since none of the movie was believable to begin with. Colm is always a pleasure to see. Colm makes both a great good guy and a great bad guy according to whatever role in whatever movie. Colm's agent needs to find him more work, assuming of course, that Colm wants more acting roles. The other actors were pretty cartoony, but then this was a pretty cartoony movie.

I was a bit curious as to what the giant bugs eat when foolish unwary humans aren't meandering around the tunnels. Gophers? Moles? Each other? Apparently there's a lot of food available between human snacks as there were a LOT of giant bugs.

And those light bulbs in the tunnels. Even after decades, they still worked just fine. I saw very few if any burned-out ones. Where can I buy light bulbs like that? It suits me just fine not to have to replace my ceiling light bulbs for 50 or 60 or 70 years. And just where is the electricity coming from? You would think that after decades of no money, the providing electricity company would have shut off that circuit for non-payment of the electrical bill. Unless Gramps was continuing to pay it all along. Details about this were a little fuzzy. But important as without light, Our Heroes and the baddies would have been stumbling around in the dark at every moment.

One dead hoof up for being deep underground and having giant bugs. One dead hoof down for being so shlocky when attention to plausible details would have made this at least a little bit less shlocky.