StyleSk8r At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

Senteur As somebody who had not heard any of this before, it became a curious phenomenon to sit and watch a film and slowly have the realities begin to click into place.

Sameer Callahan It really made me laugh, but for some moments I was tearing up because I could relate so much.

Kaydan Christian A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

jonsefcik Not only is this the worst horror film I've seen, its one of the worst films, period. The majority of the film is an abysmal assault on the senses, but the ugly, repugnant ending is what really seals the deal.This is a "special" kind of movie in its badness. Its not so bad its good. Its not so bad it can be riffed on (seriously, try it and you'll be hard pressed to find anything to make fun of). Like other reviewers have stated, its just plain unwatchable. I seriously question the mental well-being of anyone who found The Cavern legitimately entertaining.Let's start with the filmmaking and script, which are astonishingly poor. The film is set in Kazakhstan, even though its referred to as Russia in the movie itself and on the IMDb plot summary. I didn't know the Kazakhstani wilderness looked so much like the California desert. The characters are all bland and uninteresting, so we have no reason to care about them. Why would one of the characters go caving on the anniversary of the death of a loved one's death as a result of a caving accident? The lighting is just terrible; all the scenes in the cave are lit only with headlamps. This wouldn't be so bad if we could tell what's going on, but none of the light reflects off the cave walls since its always shining directly into the camera. The epileptic flash photography sequences don't help, either. This makes for a very disorienting experience. My best guess is they were attempting to recreate The Descent, a cave film that also used no studio lighting. Here's the difference: The Descent was made by competent filmmakers who knew how to utilize the low light levels to create suspense while still showing the audience what was going on. The blinding headlamps coupled with the frantic editing in The Cavern make the narrative almost incomprehensible. There were a couple dumb moments I was able to pick out, though. One of the characters suggests they douse their headlamps so the creature won't see them. That would do literally nothing since cave-dwelling animals are typically blind and rely entirely on their other senses. Another character suggests they split up. It may be a horror cliche, but splitting up is one of the worst things you can do in a situation like that!So far the movie has been really bad. But the ending? You ain't seen nothing yet!In the final scene, the two surviving girls wake up naked by an obviously fake CGI fire in the cave, wrapped in animal fur blankets. They find a picture from 1980 of what looks like a 10-year-old boy. Rather hilariously, they eat some cooked meat only to find its the charred remains of one of their friends. A caveman with a burnt face is revealed to be the attacker. In a confusing flashback, its revealed that the boy in the picture survived a plane crash and decided to become a caveman. How has this boy (who I assume had no survival experience at the time) survive more than a week? This raises so many more questions like how does a normal human move giant rocks by himself, see in the dark, and survive gunshots? The creatures in The Descent had abilities and weaknesses within reason, and the fact they evolved in caves was a believable excuse as to why they were so good at moving in the dark. The fact the monster is a normal human is absolutely stupid.But wait, it gets worse...Up to this point the film has been insultingly stupid and incompetent, but the last 20 seconds is where it goes from abysmal to morally reprehensible. The last 20 seconds is a blast of badly edited shaky cam and screaming. I had no idea what was happening, and I assumed he killed them. Then I looked up the plot summary on Wikipedia and it turns out that he killed one and raped the other. I went back through that final scene frame by frame and could (vaguely) make out that that was indeed what was happening.Here's the problem: you can't end your movie mid-rape! Not only does it make for a deplorable, dissatisfying experience that leaves a sour taste in the viewer's mouth, but it simply doesn't work artistically. What do most movies have the The Cavern doesn't? The answer is elevation. I have no problem with unhappy or unsatisfying endings. Films like Se7en, John Carpenter's The Thing, Funny Games, and even The Descent may not have happy endings, but they all serve an artistic purpose and give the audience something to think about. The ending of The Cavern makes me think if a rape victim saw this, the last thing they'd see before the credits is a reminder of what is most likely the most traumatizing experience of their lives with no light at the end of the (both physical and metaphorical) tunnel. I have no problem with the inclusion of a rape scene as long as there's a point. Honestly, the fact that the rape scene is the ending is what bothers me so much. I wouldn't be so mad if there was more after the rape. If, for example, the scene suddenly cut to black and was followed by a sequence of killing the beast and finding a way out, it wouldn't be the greatest thing ever but it would have at least given this dumpster fire some kind of elevating resolution. Some connection between the main characters entering the cave (which looks vaguely like a vagina) and two of the characters having consensual sex early on in the film with a dweller of the cave having non-consensual sex may be intended, but you can't just end a movie there!I rarely ever give a movie a 0 because to do so implies I can't understand how anyone could get anything positive out of the experience. However, The Cavern really is THAT BAD to me.

forceuserjames I've seen some crap-poor movies in my time on this earth, but sweet lord did this movie sucks! Apparently, the antagonist is Two-faces Russian son, who found a cave, got trapped in it, yet seems to be able to teleport throughout the cave (e.x. he goes back up to the top of the cave, seals them in, then somehow makes it back down into the cave. Why the eff did he not just leave years ago?) He is also either bullet- proof, or has mutant-like healing powers. I would guess the latter, since he can also phase through walls. Did I mention that all this "brutal" killing is just to get a piece a dat? Oh, and somehow (also not explained) a freaking airplane manages to get inside of this cave. If you want to waste an hour and 20 some odd minutes of your life, go watch a Godzilla film. Yes they're cheesy as heck, but at least they're endearing and re- watchable. Problems: Camera - Shaky cams have been done well before (Blair Witch, Cloverfield) and they've been done poorly (Monster) but throw in almost complete darkness and the almost dizzying camera becomes a confusing pain in the bum. Throw in the sequences of "shiz mah batteriez r dead" and everyone's batteries are out at the same time and you get squelchy invisible deaths (that ironically enough, one of them looks exactly the same as another shaky-cam movie, REC.) Story - None. The "backstory" is just confusing, and comes up at awkward times. The movie plot itself is this formula; Run -> Stop -> Freak -> Someone yells "calm down!" -> Batteries die -> person dies -> repeat. for the whole. movie.Positives: scenes? Belay that. Neither one made any dang sense.I'm going to go off somewhere and try to pretend I didn't just watch this p.o.s

Annabelle_Lee If one could partition the stars on IMDb, I would have given this movie 0.01! Among all the "innovative" movies of this genre this is about the worst I have seen. Imagine 'Blair witch project' crossed with 'Quarantine', but with no zombies, no nothing.All the movie a bunch of "bright" young men and women are running around some cave screaming and cursing, trying to learn some Russian(!) in a process, while something is hunting them down one by one. That's about it... The overall impression I got is that somebody ripped off one of "South Park" episodes, but took it "for real". :)But more seriously now, the whole plot is that a jungle-book Mowgli rip off that survived a plane-crash, lived from age 10-11 in a cave in the desert, with almost no source of food, for a dozen years, only to wait for a group of explorers to stumble upon his cave so he can kill them off one by one, and rape the women? Very original. He gets shot several times, but the animal skins on him save him? Really? Where can I buy one of those bear skins? I have stumbled upon this movie in a rental shop, and decided to watch it because it was fairly new and I'd never heard of it before. Now I know why... If you want a really good movie of this type, watch 'The Ruins'.

rixrex Good thing I only paid $1 for this at the Big Lots! What a rotten example of a cave movie, or perhaps it could be said, a good example of how to NOT do a cave movie.The comment from the spelunker notwithstanding, the fact is that a MOVIE about a CAVE has to have more than the glare of lamps in our face to be appreciated. There has to be a minimal amount of back-lighting in order for us to see the activity. Not only did this trash have no back-lighting at all, it barely had any lighting upon the subjects and too often they were shot in close-up even during action scenes, leaving me to speculate as to what actually happened.While this technique is useful in keeping the hideous beast hidden from view, to use it for nearly all scenes is just ridiculous. Those who wish to see a cave as it would actually appear to an explorer, you only need to go into one yourselves. That's reality, but this was supposed to be a movie that could be watched and understood. It wasn't.Do yourself a favor and stick to The Cave and Descent for some good underground thrills.