Movie Review: Catacombs

A film on which Lionsgate and Twisted pictures teamed up forming something to first be exclusively released on the horror website Fearnet.com, surely must be good and spooky, right? Well, just like the mazes within the film about to be discussed rights might be wrong or left, up, down, or diagonally circular.

Catacombs was directed by Tomm Coker and David Elliot and they both wrote on the screenplay as well. The film stars Shannyn Sossamon, mainly, and then also Alecia Moore; who is better known as the pop singer : Pink. The story revolves around a woman visiting her sister in Paris, a sister that takes her to a rave party in France's underground catacombs. Unfortunately there seems to be a killer loose in the dark twisting mazes beneath the city.

The movie begins by stating it is based on a true story, which probably only means that there truly are catacombs beneath France, but as for the rest of it: nah. Apparently, the catacombs of France are considered the largest mass grave in the world with the movie stating the passage ways are lined with the bones of 7 Million corpses. Of course later in the film one of the characters is re-telling the facts and says 6 Million, but give or take a million sets of bones: the setting is indeed quite original and interesting. It is more often than not illegal to venture into most of the real life catacombs and it should also be noted that the movie was mainly filmed in Romania.

The problem with the interesting setting, the catacombs, is lighting. The catacombs are dark and that would only be scary if we were actually there. As it is we are a viewer, if we includes more than me actually watching the film, and watching a black screen with no picture gets tiresome. The filming of Catacombs goes from fast paced and shaky with strobe lights, to complete darkness, over and over again, with a long stretch of wondering around with a flashlight.