THE CAVE

US, 2005, 97 minutes, Colour.
Cole Hauser, Morris Chestnut, Lena Headey, Piper Parabo.
Directed by Bruce Hunt.

With a title like The Cave, you know what you are in for. And that is exactly what you get, competently crafted for scares, action and thrills.

The setting is Romania, the Carpathian mountains (and we know who used to live there). Under one of those churches with frescoes on the outside is a mysterious series of caves with new species of creatures. (The press notes quote experts as saying that such caverns were found in Romania in the 1990s.)

After a prologue in the 1980s, where greedy church robbers get their comeuppance, an expedition with every modern gadget and computer program, comes to explore. You know there are going to be frightening creatures. You know that most of the cavers are going to be killed off (a bit unfair with the Australian being the first one to go!). You know that a man and a woman will survive (though you may be wrong on which man) and you know there were will be a sinister ending to remind us that the menace will continue. And so it does.

Depending on your interest in caves and methods for scaling walls, climbing and crawling and your capacity for battles with creatures, you will enjoy the film or find yourself unengaged.

1. The title, the enclosed world of the cave, attraction, fear? The creatures?

2. The Romanian settings, the mountains, the countryside? The interiors of the cave, large and extensive, the water? The musical score?

3. Audience expectations, the dangers of the cave, the creatures, the members of the expedition successively killed off?

4. The prologue, the 1980s, greed, the church with the external frescoes? The mosaics, the trapdoor? The treasure? The creatures and the collapse? The explorers and their fate?

5. The professor, the 20th century, expeditions, caves? The biological studies of creatures? The plans for exploration? The contact with Mexico, the team in Mexico, their underwater work, their equipment, characters?

6. The team, computers, the range of equipment? Jack and his leadership? The different roles? Their arrival in Romania, meeting the professor’s team? Jack and his assistant? Peter, meeting Katherine?

7. The entry into the cave, the explorations, the mystery? The collapse and their being trapped? Searching ways to get out? The details of the caves, the confined spaces, the water, light, wind?

8. The plan to get out, the groups? The creatures attacking? The use of the equipment, the equipment being destroyed, the successive deaths?

9. The visualising of the creatures? Their attack? Monstrous? The explanation of their being parasites, consuming the dead? Infecting the live people and the effect?

10. Jack, leadership, his being infected, his eyes, his reactions? Part parasite? Part human? His rescue of the gear, sacrificing his life?

11. The various clashes, the radio man and his death, Briggs and his being impaled? The further exploration?

12. The climber, her ascending the cliff, being menaced by the creatures, reaching the top, her fall, her death?

13. Peter, his relationship with Jack, supporting him? Attraction towards Katherine? Their working together? The black partner, his leadership? Their surviving?

14. Jack, the parasite taking him over, rescuing the gear, helping the others?

15. How well delineated were the characters, as personalities, men and women, their skills, interactions, crises?

16. The water, the escape?

17. Peter and Katherine, the survival – and the irony of Katherine being infected, going into the crowd and Peter losing her? The parasite at loose in the world?