It may not seem fair to pigeonhole an entire decade, but man 00s movies had no chill. It really is a low point in history for subtlety, which had been on a steady decline since the 70s, but reached it's lowest point just before 2009, when people started to realize that understated tension could actually be a good thing.
The movie has a lot going for it. The claustrophobic setting is uncomfortable from the get-go. It makes you hate the main characters for even putting themselves in that situation, anyone willing to crawl through a hole in an underground cave deserves what's coming. It does a great job setting up the atmosphere through cool lighting tricks and the natural intrigue of the environment. The film could have coasted on the real dangers of the setting, but alas, we get monsters.
I would have maybe accepted some form of creature in the caves if it was sold in a more realistic way, but the humanoid "I Am Legend" style cave dwellers just cheapen things. They certainly don't hold back on the unsettling gore, and the lake of blood sequence is especially chilling, but all the Buffy villains running around just makes things come off a little goofy.
There's a pretty good top IMDB review that breaks down how the cave is actually a metaphor for the protagonist's subconscious, and I quite like that explanation. It almost makes me forgive the cheesy "crawlers". Almost.
The movie has a lot going for it. The claustrophobic setting is uncomfortable from the get-go. It makes you hate the main characters for even putting themselves in that situation, anyone willing to crawl through a hole in an underground cave deserves what's coming. It does a great job setting up the atmosphere through cool lighting tricks and the natural intrigue of the environment. The film could have coasted on the real dangers of the setting, but alas, we get monsters.
I would have maybe accepted some form of creature in the caves if it was sold in a more realistic way, but the humanoid "I Am Legend" style cave dwellers just cheapen things. They certainly don't hold back on the unsettling gore, and the lake of blood sequence is especially chilling, but all the Buffy villains running around just makes things come off a little goofy.
There's a pretty good top IMDB review that breaks down how the cave is actually a metaphor for the protagonist's subconscious, and I quite like that explanation. It almost makes me forgive the cheesy "crawlers". Almost.