dantewyrmfoe Reviews

The Cavern (III) (2005)

Saw it for free and still want my money back.

[1/10 · 2 January 2007]

Horror films are a curious thing, sometimes they manage to stumble across a formula that works very well, sometimes they try valiantly to tell a worthy story despite time and budget problems, sometimes they're so bad they're actually kinda fun...and sometimes they're "The Cavern".

A good horror/suspense film should contain vagaries that keep you guessing, they should allow you to be interested in the characters and their motivations so that you actually have some sort of reaction when they die. However, The Cavern chooses instead to introduce elements that work at first, only to be negated by it's own lackluster storytelling.

All the characters are completely forgettable and any actual back story that might make any of them even remotely interesting is blurted out within a 30 second monologue, making it impossible to do anything more than laugh as characters are picked off almost at random and on more than one occasion in the least possibly frightening way.

(To spoil a scene a bit, one victim is taken during a complete blackout which might have been a little frightening if the sound effect used to indicate his killing wasn't reminiscent of stirring a pot of too thick Macaroni and Cheese) Add to this formula the camera that work makes me think the director saw one too many Nine Inch Nails videos and an ending which in an attempt to be shocking serves almost no purpose but to annoy and confuse the viewer and you have an almost completely unwatchable horror film that fails on every level.

I'll be honest with you, if you want a claustrophobic caving horror movie go watch "The Descent", and I feel weird saying that because I didn't particularly enjoy that movie either.

Sin City (2005)

A virtually perfect adaptation of a fantastic property

[4 April 2005]

To say that "Sin City" is a great movie would be the great disservice to the words "great" and "movie".

I went into it hoping for a comic book adaptation at least as good as X-men but would have settled for something as good as Constantine. What I got what the most faithful comic book adaptation I've ever seen...period. The look, the pace, the stories, the characters...everything was so dead on perfect that it made me teary eyed just to watch it.

It's always been my opinion that sometimes it's nice to let the floodgates open and let every disturbing base impulse spill out in front of you and then spend a few hours wallowing in your own filth. When your done with your id fueled rampage, if you were to take a step back and look at the mess you've made you'd see something truly beautiful. That is exactly what this movie is, it's unapologetically over the top. The violence and voice overs, the guns and girls, the stereotypes and archetypes, the enemies and archenemies, the passion and the pain, the finality of going too far when you've done all the wrong things for all the right reasons...and the disturbingly thin line between the redeemed and the fallen.

At first glance the violence is all you see. You see Basin city for what it appears to be on the surface, a disgusting pit full of corrupt cops, politicians, hookers, deadbeats, druggies and psychos...not all of which are mutually exclusive. But once you've given yourself up to it, let yourself accept the way things are, and understand the rules a little better...that's when the fun starts. It is at that moment when the picture becomes clear, it's when you get your first full glimpse of the bigger picture that you see just how breathtakingly beautiful it is.

Suffice it to say that I had been a pretty big fan of Frank Miller's "Sin City" for quite some time now, the stories he wrote were some of my first exposure to the broader spectrum of what comic books could be. The Movie adaptation didn't try to retell the stories, it didn't try to re-imagine them. For a change the director realized that this wasn't his story to change, it wasn't his world to alter and the only way to get the final product to come out just right was to get the hand of the creator to mold the clay himself.

OK so final words. Will you enjoy Sin City as much as I did? Hard to say, It requires a love for the film noire genre to begin with...I saw a lot of people getting irate at the constant voice overs and the fact that the film was presented in black and white. I saw people who were disgusted by the themes presented. I don't think this movie is for everyone, it's a hard pill to swallow. But if you are already of a mind to enjoy this type of entertainment then I think you won't be disappointed.

On another note...I think everyone who's only exposure to Elijah Wood has been his portrayal of Frodo Baggins has to watch this movie and look out for Kevin...sweet, baby faced, delightfully disturbing Kevin.