Living Dark: The Story of Ted the Caver

A low budget film that really worked with the budget. The acting and the practical effects were good. Combined with compelling story telling, it was a pleasant surprise. It's rare to see films about creepy pastas done well, so it was nice.

2 of the dumbest brothers you will ever see go caving. Despite no caving experience or any form of a motive, they risk their lives in the dumbest way possible. If you have a fear of tight spaces, you will be horrified by the stupidity of the brothers and the situations they get themselves into. Again, all for no reason.

I had absolutely no expectations for this movie. I found out there was a Ted the Caver movie, and saw it was on prime, and immediately watched it. When it first began, I thought it was going to suck. Every scene outside the cave looks extremely cheap and amateurish. Once they get into the cave, however, it starts to look more like a real movie.

The cave sets look really good. I'd believe that it was all shot in a real cave, but then some of the shots they got would be impossible. The acting from our leads is a little corny, but this is a very low budget horror, so it was really just as good as it needed to be.

There's some good suspense, but some annoying "it was just a loud noise" jump scares. The jump scares are the worst part of this movie. They're effective, I jumped, but they felt really cheap for the most part. And they were far too frequent. There's a few other problems, such as a character who only exists as a McGuffin to get our leads back into the cave.

If you're an expert on Ted the Caver, you probably won't like it because it does deviate from the original story. If you're like me, who read the story 10 years ago and forgot about it until I stumbled upon this movie, I think you'll enjoy it. Big recommendation, I think this is truly a hidden gem.

IN SHORT, and without spoilers, I think this might've worked as a VERY LOW budget and low-key "horror" flick, IF only they didn't drop the ball at the end.

I found it mildly interesting and even "promising" for the first half, so I was kind of expecting something "good" going forward, despite the obvious slow burn pace, but IMO things got totally messed up, and became confusing and underwhelming after that.

Not even talking about production value, acting and visuals, here, as it's clear this is low budget (and scenography is minimal but OK), but the main issue lies in how the story evolves into an unbelievable nothing, basically.

I had extremely low expectations for a movie based on a creepypasta, but I love the original Ted the Caver story so much I decided to give this a try, and I was *pleasantly* surprised.

The movie really was pretty scary, in my opinion, though yes, some are jump scares, as almost all horror movies do. The actor who played Ted - Chris Cleveland - was a wonderful surprise. He strongly reminded me of Matthew McConnaghey, and I really felt his terror. In my opinion, his performance alone changed this from an average movie to one I really liked.

Yes, there are some weak plot points (which is the only reason I didn't go for an 8), but I've seen few horror movies with a plot that doesn't require some suspension of disbelief.

Give it a chance. I'm glad I did!