Review of the 2005 Horror Film, The Cave

Blood-thirsty creatures await a pack of divers who become trapped in an underwater cave network.

Nothing new or original here. This is basically like Stephen King's "Night shift" with a new twist that seems like an
afterthought. But I still found it intriguing, mainly because of the setting. An underwater cave is pretty unique for a movie such as this - well, not that much at least.

The story is simple and easy to follow. For about the first half of the movie, we follow the divers and crew into a huge,
cavernous underwater cave network, miles under ground, with hundreds of offshoot tunnels (thus a claustrophobic feel to it). They encounter creatures and more creatures on the food chain down there until they find the top of the chain, then the real fun begins. The rest of the movie is about their battle to escape the creatures and the maze of tunnels. The most original part of the story is that the creatures are intelligent and can take over the control of human's minds like parasites through the bloodstream, basically they are vampire parasites.

The acting is pretty uniform for a simple horror movie like this. No one stands out but no one is bad either a.k.a. no one annoyed me. Well a few of the divers competed against each other like jocks, which did get a bit old.

The effects are very good I thought, all things considered. The caves are probably the best part of this movie for me. It made for a very closed-in, no-way-out atmosphere. The main creatures look like giant bats with huge membranous, veiny wings. We don't get to see great detailed views of the creatures' features, like their faces - mostly super fast, brief glimpses. Let's just say that they're not the most original effects, they serve their purpose. There is some gore but nothing very memorable.