Within

A virtual carbon copy of The Cave save for a fewer lower budget effects and a slightly different plot. I knew the movie was going downhill when I saw the fake campfire flikering lights clearly reflected in a facial close up of one of the actors. The conflicts between characters and subplots seemed to serve no purpose whatsoever, and added nothing to the film except fewer moments of silence. The acting wasn't as bad as the typical B movie, and there was some believability in their fear, but as professional cavers, they seem to be too psychologically unstable for their chosen profession. Overall not worth wasting $4.50 to rent.

Possibly the worst movie I ever saw. The person who shot this movie probably never learned not to film directly into a shining light. You can't see anything in this movie. It is way to dark. The parts where you can see something the camera is directed straight at a light source so you get big lens flares. So you still can't see. This movie should have been a radio play or something. Some parts of the movie are actually edited upside-down for some kind of crap effect. Low budget movies can be done so much better then this. And low budget is no excuse for this. An editor should have said something when he started editing and saw that you couldn't see anything. Maybe the makers should have spend some of their low budget on a preview monitor so they could see what they shot. The only good thing about this movie being so dark is that you can't see the awful acting. It also covers up the crappy sfx. People at beginner film schools make better movies then this. Movies shot with handy cams look better then this.

The movie goes something like this: Run around, run around, someone killed, lots of freaking out and then one of the group yells to "Pull it together" or "Just calm down!" Repeat this as many times as their are characters left. In between these things, you get to enjoy blank, black screen. These are not quick but rather several seconds long. I kept thinking what a waste of film every time it happened - yes, it does happen more than once if you can believe it.

I notice other mentioned "Blair Witch: and it did remind me of that in the way the camera was bouncy. However, this movie takes that to the extreme. Every single time the characters move the camera is bouncing. Sometimes so much that you can't make heads or tales as to what you are looking at. That brings us to lighting. Way too dark in some areas. I get that they are trying to make us feel like we are in a cave, but Helllloo... I'm watching a movie here, it would be nice to be able to see.

Then there is the ending. I actually blurted out loud, "Are you kidding me?!" (I was watching alone too). Dumb, dumb. I think the ending was purely the effort of the people who made this disaster to shock us after so much time of boredom with a so called "twist". At this point of the movie you could have seen the "monster" picking his nose and it would be considered a "twist". Truly horrible. You have been warned.

There seems to have been some money behind this film, but it would be impossible to imagine a film this badly planned and executed if I hadn't actually started watching it.

To begin with, once we are in the cavern with the characters (the usual young adult stereotypes we've been meeting in horror films since the early '80s), the film is shot almost entirely in close-up. Since the actors are wearing helmet lights, this means all we see are glaring lights alternating with utter darkness - we never get to see what the characters see; so when they shout out "Look there!" we are left to beg "What?! Where?!". Ultimately the film has a nauseating, confusing strobe-light effect, with no sense to it until we get to the end.

And I won't tell you what 'the end' means - but you will recognize it if you've ever seen the old early '60s Arch Hall laugh fest"Eegah!" with Richard Kiel.

But what crazy person would ever want to make a variation on a theme like "Eegah!"'s, long remembered as one of the worst films ever made?! But that's what we have here, folks. Except that, unlike "Eegah!", "The Cavern" is not anyone's idea of goofy fun. It is unwatchable. (I ran it at x2 the normal speed, just to get it over with, hoping I would actually be able to see something by the end of the film; but when I did, it was just stupid.) This film did provide me with one satisfying moment, though; since it only cost a couple bucks, after I got it out of the DVD player, I was able to smash it with my own hands - what a relief!

My first post at the IMDb has to (unfortunately) be to warn others not to waste their time with The Cavern! There is no story, no character development, no scares, and no good lighting. It doesn't make any sense. If you enjoy bad acting, people running through small portions of caves, bouncing cameras posed at bad angles, and people screaming while the screen is in complete darkness, you'll love this movie. I could shut the lights off in my house and scream too, and I wouldn't have to pay for the rental. The only thing that scared me was that someone actually made a movie this awful.

... one of the worst movies I've ever rented.