« Two fine things | Main | New Tufte book is out at last »
June 11, 2006
Scary cave movies
So I’ve been watching horror movies set in caves. Well, just two of them: “The Cave”, a big-budget Hollywood one, and “The Descent”, the smaller-budget UK one. Both are from 2005.
Both films pretty much have the same plot: a group of people in a cave get trapped with no hope of rescue, try to get out, and are hunted by creepy cave-creatures that Should Not Be. But they couldn’t be more different. “The Cave” has characters who are brooding hunks, with names like “Briggs” and “Stroker”. “The Descent” is just six normal women. Ok, they’re badass spelunking women, but they’re basically normal. They have names like “Beth” and “Sarah”.
“The Cave” relies on the usual tricks of creatures around corners, lots of dripping water, and the creeping cave madness of the leader. And it’s really not scary at all. “The Descent”, is absolutely petrifying for most of its length. It does have a sort of pointless backstory of a tragic accident one of the characters cannot overcome. And, yes, once the creatures show up, they’re really kinda lame (though there’s a homemade charm to the effects and makeup). But “The Descent” manages to ratchet up the tension tremendously by playing on really scary things: claustrophobia, disorientation, broken legs, and mistrust. It doesn’t rely on the characters doing dumb things, where the people in “The Cave”—who we’re constantly reminded “are special forces” or “are the best in the business”—are constantly doing dumb things like leaving their cave-diving partner alone, or leaping into some underground rapids, or splitting up.
Posted by Andrew at June 11, 2006 01:01 AM
Trackback Pings
TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.heyotwell.com/cgi-bin/mt/mt-tb.cgi/127