Customer Reviews

Caved In: Prehistoric Terror

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

SCIFI CHANNEL's at it again with this minor piece of entertainment, nothing great, but not horrible either. We start in 1948 and a mining supervisor orders his crew to work overtime to clear some rocks that are blocking a passageway. One guy refuses and gets into fisticuffs knocking the supervisor into the rocks and lo and behold, the passageway is cleared. Inside, AHHH, a fortune in emeralds and beetles..not John Paul George and Ringo either...but great big vicious killer beetles. A cavein ensues and we flash forward to present day where the descendant of the pugilistic miner has the map that leads to the emeralds and he'll do anything to get them! That includes forcing BLUE LAGOON's Christopher Atkins to lead him and Colm Meany and crew in spite of the killer bugs. It's all been done before but at least they use beetles which is a little original, and the effects are above average. A decent timewaster for those predisposed to giant bug movies.

Well, this was not a very good movie, but it had some redeeming qualities. Mom with a pump action shot gun was nothing less than a super hero. I mean she was awesome and when she started blasting away, you almost had to feel sorry for the poor defenseless 6 foot long killer beetles. Then there was the kind of humorous part where every time mom blasted a beetle, its guts splattered all over the cute little blonde spoiled daughter. The little brother was an idiot. Dad was a little on the naive side too. The bad guys tried to act tough but were pretty incompetent. And how did all the lights and the elevator work in this abandoned mine fifty years later? It's a good thing they did because the explorers brought almost no equipment. Huh? Well the bottom line is, this movie is watchable, laughable and not the worst way to kill a couple hours if you like Sci Fi channel caliber movies. I do, so I was okay with it. Man, mom was good with that shotgun!!!

I have been around the B-horror movie block enough to tell you that they can get way worse than this movie. At least we have a clean crisp picture, a little gut mutilation, with an unoriginal, yet attention drawing story line. That is all the good I have to say about it though. Now on to the cheese and everything else: What we have here folks is a movie that has a "made for tv quality" feel to it with a lot of bad FX. They used the cheapest computer graphics they could possibly get to invent a swam of giant mutant stag beetles (which in reality are only capable if pinching you and they prefer to eat fruit...but what the heck) They live in a mine that has giant emeralds in the same room as nest, and so the story goes: greedy crooks, hire a friendly cave tour guide and his nice family who soon get tangled into their "get rich quick "scheme. Slowly. Characters (mainly the bad guys) get picked off by the (harmless) stag beetles. At some point you will stop caring because you know how the movie is going to end, and there are no surprises along the way. Everything was "as expected" The acting ranged from ok to terrible. The FX did as well. You will find you self laughing now and than at the acting and the splatter. Let me give you a visual: shot gun blows up beetle, green slime gets thrown on girls hair repeatedly! There is also lack of unique death scenes in this movie. You pretty much see the same stuff over and over again. Disembowelment is only cool the first time you see it!

Verdict. If you are REALLY bored and you like those old Sci-Fi movies that you find late at night on the old USA channel, or Sci-Fi channel, than maybe you should....er...ah, never mind, just skip it anyway

Sci-Fi Channel be damned. i never thought they could ever produce a film worth purchasing, but they have. a truly entertaining and original bug movie.

A local is con'd out of his home so that miners can dig in his land for riches. what they find are giant beetles with a thirst for human flesh. meanwhile a family of adventurers move in to the area and begin a cave diving tour. they are soon contracted by mercenaries hoping to find out what happened to the mine unaware of the giant beetles below. they decend into the caves and are shut in by a quake leaving them stranded in a cave with man-eaters. The wife and daughter are on the surface and are quickly under siege from the flesh eating bugs. they must find a way, both those on the surface and those below, to stop the pissed off bugs before its to late.

Now the sci-fi channel usually has a 2 million or less budget for thier films and usualy do okey with the budget but really bad in total. this is one of the few films that proves that mix-up. The CG beetles are not bad looking and can pass off as shiny giant bugs most of the time. The acting is minimal at most but has some good backup from christopher atkins and colm meaney of DS9.

Adventurers hire an expert cave explorer as guide, and they go down deep into the mine shafts in Switzerland that have been deserted for 50 years. Actually they are not just adventurers; they are criminals looking for something very precious, but, well, that's not important. Deep in the cave the expedition team encounters something big, something fearful and creepy. Yes, they're giant beetles attacking and eating humans!

This is a typical, silly plot that can be fun with skillful storytelling or clever direction, but unfortunately "Caved In" has neither of them. The story goes on in a matter-of-fact way; it's no fun to see the actors acting badly fighting against a bunch of big bugs badly CG-created. And that `bad' is not kind of `campy' type of badness, nor `tongue-in-cheek' kind of the intentional one. It's plain bad. Designs are no better. The cave never looks real. It is too clean and the rocks and stones, I believe, are put there by someone in the set.

For the record, Christopher Atkins plays the leader of the team. David Palffy and Colm Meaney hire him. The film tries to add something new by showing the members of Atkin's family; Angela Featherstone as his wife, Stevie Mitchell as his son and Chelan Simmons as his daughter. Fans of these actors, however, would be very disappointed for they are not allowed to show their best. But how can they when fighting back the cheesy creatures in the insipid battle scenes?

Direct-to-video "Caved In" (2006) was released just one year after not-so-great "The Cave" (2005). They are not related, but both movies have similar stories about the expedition team going deep into the earth and the predatory creatures attacking them. The difference is "The Cave" has decent production designs and impressive cinematography while everything in "Caved In" looks quite cheap. If you ask me which is better, my answer is, none. But here's another answer I can give and that is, See "The Descent."

I have seen bad movies before and this was one of the best bad movie that I have ever seen. In other words, if you like bad movies, movies with plot holes and stupid graphics this is one for you.

this is a great movie it has
creature violence,gore,action.
and the most important thing a
happy ending.so do more good reviews
ok.

If you start questioning the logic behind this story your head will explode. These were subterranean bugs, lived in the dark forever, yet, once given the opportunity, they had no trouble dashing for the surface and tracking down people to attack. (Okay, maybe they occasionally turned on the lights below so they could read, sew, cook......because goodness knows electricity is a lot better than lava light).
Yes, it was dopey, the plot overly familiar, the bad guys standard fare, the children annoying, the bugs.....well, they were BIG. Other than that, this would be all right for a double feature night, providing the second feature was a whole lot better.

The casting director did a great job in finding kids that could be made up to look like clones of their parents, which would have been great if this movie was about clones. I did have a few questions. What type of shotgun was that which fired 24 times without reloading? What did these giant beetles feed off of when there were no tasty humans around? How is it these beetles tunneled 1,000s of feet underground, but never made it to the surface? Why did the Swiss bad guy have a bad Spanish accent? And couldn't they have at least tied up one of the women?

Christopher Atkins of "The Blue Lagoon" and "Dracula Rising" stars as John Palmer, the head of a family of professional cave guides. Palmer is unwittingly deceived into helping international thieves find an entrance to an abandoned Swiss mine. Within its walls is a "bridal chamber" of enormous emeralds. Unfortunately, it is surrounded by a colony of giant, prehistoric beetles that are prepared to tear intruders apart.

Made for the Sci-Fi cable channel, "Caved In: Prehistoric Terror" is fun and exciting. It has an interesting prologue that is set in 1948. A group of Swiss miners find a room with walls imbedded with huge emeralds. Gigantic beetles stream out of the room like a black flood of death; they slaughter everyone except one man who is physically and emotionally crippled. His grandson, Marcel, will kill anyone who stands in his way of obtaining those emeralds. He hires Palmer to take him and his friends into the abandoned mine. Suspenseful chases and gory dismemberments ensue.

There are numerous touching, heartfelt moments involving Palmer and his family. Unknown to him, his son is trapped alone inside the mine, pursued by the beetles, and his wife and daughter, left back at their cabin, are being terrorized by one of Marcel's murderous henchmen.

The acting is sub par and the plot has more holes than the cave itself. However, the Palmers are an adorable, charming family and you will find yourself cheering for them as they fight against European thugs and giant prehistoric beetles. There is non-stop action and the special effects are decent. "Caved In - Prehistoric Terror" is highly recommended if you are a fan of subterranean horror or a fan of creature features on the Sci-Fi channel. Other films in the subterranean horror genre that you may enjoy are "The Descent," "The Cave," and "The Cavern."