Caved In

In 1948, a group of miners finds a gallery full of emeralds in a salt mine in Switzerland, but they are attacked by giant black beetles and only one of them survives. In the present days, the explorer John Palmer (Christopher Atkins) is ready to take vacations in Greece with his family when he is contacted and invited by a stranger called Vincent (Colm Meaney) to lead his team in an expedition into a mine in Switzerland. In return, Vincent offers a large amount to John and the cottage nearby a lake and the entrance of the mine for his family spends the vacation. John accepts the offer, and while leading the group underground in the tunnels, he finds that their ambitious leader Marcel (David Palffy) is a very dangerous man. When John meets giant black beetles in the cave, he orders the group to return but Marcel threatens the safety of his family, forcing John to lead the team to the deep location of the emerald mine.

"Caved In" is a B-movie with the usual flaws of this type of film, such as bad acting, silly lines, poor effects and a flawed and in this case corny screenplay. However, it is funny and entertains if the viewer likes those low-budget horror / sci-fi from the 50's and 60's. The blonde Chelan Simmons spends her time screaming and saying the most stupid lines of the story. The teenager Stevie Mitchell is young and has time to dedicate to another profession, or at least try to study how to act, how terrible his acting is in this film. Colm Meaney, Angela Featherstone, David Palffy and Christopher Atkins have good performances and Monica Birladeanu is extremely gorgeous. In the end, I did not totally dislike this forgettable film. My vote is four.

Title (Brazil): "A Caverna Maldita" ("The Damned Cave")

"Caved In" features several 'name' actors who are unfortunately reduced to acting in such a by-the-books film. Christopher Atkins and Angela Featherstone play husband and wife John and Samantha Palmer who, along with their 2 children work as guides of some sort (I don't recall is being specifically stated what they do other than take people around strange places).

Instead of going on a family vacation, John Palmer accepts on offer of a lot of money to take some less-than-respectable people into some ancient caverns to hunt for a tomb full of emeralds. So he does, while his family are left to explore above-ground. Naturally, things get out of hand in the old tunnels when giant (CGI) beetles begin attacking, and one-by-one the bad guys all begin to get killed off, or double crossed. The bugs begin making their way to the surface, putting Palmer's family in even more danger.

The acting is not too bad, well, it shouldn't be considering who some of the cast are. Christopher Atkins and Angela Featherstone both give decent performances, but poor Colm Meany, formerly of "Star Trek" fame is reduced to little in his role here. Monica Dean and David Palffy are fairly good in their roles as criminals, though one of them has a heart. Chelan Simmons spends the entire movie being unlivable annoying and / or running around screaming. It's a good thing her acting ability also improves for her next film "Final Destination 3".

Sci-Fi and Horror are combined often for films ("Event Horizon", "Alien") but do not always work well together. This is one of those cases where it's really personal preference, as the film lacks a lot of things, but it is not without trying.

Take the monsters out of the plot and you might have had a good adventure story, the sort of things we used to see on Saturday afternoons. Oh well, the monsters were a good addition to the plot anyway. Wait . . . did I just say "plot"? I did, didn't I? Oops, my mistake. This was yet another fill-in-the-blank story that managed to offer a few surprises but not many.

Our hero is taken hostage by some French terrorists (insert joke here) who hold his wife and children captive while he is forced to lead a group of them through an abandoned mine in search of a fortune in emeralds allegedly buried there. Now right away you know there are going to be problems and the problem in this movie is:

A. Personality clashes

B. Cave-ins

C. Giant prehistoric Rhinoceros Beetles

D. Bad special effects

E. Bad acting

Did you say "all of the above"? Good! You obviously know what to expect from movies like this. The leader of the terrorists is such an unlikable crumb you just know something really awful is going to happen to him and sure enough, it does! The gun toting psychopath named Marcel who is holding the hero's wife and daughter hostage is just as bad and meets an equally awful fate after he has been in the picture long enough for the audience to really get to hate him.

The giant beetles, and there are loads of them, are fairly well rendered but when they attack you get the feeling you are not watching a movie but a video game. Several of the monsters have a tendency to explode when hit by high velocity bullets and you could almost see a score getting progressively higher in the upper right hand corner of the screen if you use your imagination. CGI effects like these will never replace stop motion animation; at least not in my opinion.

So is this movie good? I've seen better, LOTS better!

Watched this tonight...it was a forced endeavor after the first few minutes. The Sci Fi Network has some real need of new creative staff, writers and directors. This was a poorly done venture of a pitiful film. While I enjoyed seeing Colm Meaney (Vincent) and Christopher Atkins (John Palmer) again, even their acting was rather bleak. The plot was interesting, but overdone - huge mutant beetles living underground for who knows how long. While the bugs themselves looked 'real', the editing was painful! There were really bad clips during the entire movie. Pay attention to a scene early in the movie when the group is going down the mine shaft – one guy nearly falls out – watch the 'skillful' editing when they get him back on the lift! Amateur film makers with Hi-8 Video Cameras could have probably done a better job. What was up with the actors who played the kids? Chelan Simmons (Emily Palmer) and Stevie Mitchell (Miles Palmer) were real screamers! I had to check the cast list to make sure that the actress who played Emily wasn't the daughter of Kate Capshaw! (Remember all the shrill, needless screaming she did in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom). All Chelan/Emily did was scream nearly the entire movie. If the writers were more realistic, the character of Emily would have been more of a fighter and helped her mother, Samantha (played by Angela Featherstone). At one point, I hoped Samantha would just shoot Emily to shut her up. I love the Sci Fi Channel because I really love Science Fiction and Adventure films, but the bigwigs in that network need a reality check and clean house of those who are producing their network movies. Most Sci Fi Channel/Network 'Original' movies have been absolutely horrible. Why do I even try to watch their 'Original' movies? Because I do live this type of movie and want to give them a chance and...I must also be a glutton for punishment...I keep expecting that they will finally get with the right picture.

Sci Fi DOES have some great and very creative commercials - maybe they need to have the people making those promotional spots produce their network movies.

I see the beginning of a beautiful friendship: sci-fi recipe films and cheap Romanian actors and studios. I actually watched this to see what Romanian actors would do and, unfortunately, they all did horribly. I can't really say that Monica Barladeanu played badly, given that the scenes with her were either she looking beautiful, looking interested and nodding to what a guy is saying, either screaming. Marius Chivu wasn't completely awful either. Colm Meaney was his usual self, demoted from starship engineer to silly bad guy, while everybody else just played stupid, unrealistic roles and stinking at it.

OK, the plot: giant bugs live underground, but they only get out when Americans come near the cave. It's a natural mutation that occurred somewhere in ancient Egypt, so maybe they are attracted to Jews, not Americans. Anyway, these smart bugs realized that living individually, having a normal size and eating dung is not a good way of life, therefore they elected a queen, covered her in expensive jewelry and proceeded on obeying her every command. Come on! There is no plot! Giant bugs, stupid weapons, women screaming, some entrails and blood, bugs stick together for the explosive finale, the end.

Conclusion: not even cult status bad. It's a mediocre type of film, the kind of movie where all extras are Romanian, but have German or French names for whatever reason. Stay away from it.