The Cave (film)

The Cave
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Bruce Hunt
Produced by	Richard S. Wright Andrew Mason Tom Rosenberg Gary Lucchesi
Written by	Michael Steinberg Tegan West
Starring	Cole Hauser Morris Chestnut Eddie Cibrian Rick Ravanello Daniel Dae Kim with Lena Headey and Piper Perabo
Music by	Reinhold Heil Johnny Klimek
Cinematography	Ross Emery
Editing by	Brian Berden
Studio	Lakeshore Entertainment
Distributed by	Screen Gems
Release date(s)	August 26, 2005 (2005-08-26)
Running time	97 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$30 million
Box office	$33,296,457

The Cave is a 2005 horror film, directed by Bruce Hunt. It stars Cole Hauser, Eddie Cibrian, Morris Chestnut, Marcel Iureş, Lena Headey, Rick Ravanello, Piper Perabo and Daniel Dae Kim.

Plot

The film begins deep in the Carpathian mountains of Romania during the Cold War, where a group of Russian and British explorers are searching for a long lost 13th century abbey. As they venture inside and below the church, they make a startling discovery: the abbey is built over the entrance to a vast subterranean cave system. When they try to blast their way in, they cause a landslide that buries the abbey and the men are trapped in the cave below it. Once they recover, they continue on into the cave without a choice in hopes of finding a way out, but as they do, they hear strange pinging sounds coming from the darkness. They are never seen again.

30 years later, a team of archeologists are conducting an excavation of the ruins of the same abbey and discover the cave system. These scientists are Dr. Nicolai and his associate Katheryn Jannings. Local biologists believe the cave could contain an undiscovered ecosystem, so they hire a group of American spelunkers led by Jack McAllister and his brother Tyler to help them investigate its unknown depths. Jack and Tyler are thrill-seeking professional cave explorers who run a world famous team of divers. They arrive in Romania with the latest equipment, including a modified rebreather system allowing a diver to remain submerged for up to 24 hours. The diving team includes rock-climbing professional Charlie, first scout Briggs, sonar expert Strode, survival expert Top Buchanan, and cameraman Alex Kim.

As they begin the expedition, Briggs is sent to scout and contact is lost with him so they all dive in to find him. Strode is suddenly attacked by an large, unknown creature. When he is dragged away, his water scooter explodes and causes a cave-in. As they scout for a new way out, Katheryn and Nicolai discover a strange parasite in all of the lifeforms they find. All known cave creatures today are variations of outer-world creatures that have simply adapted for cave life over generations, but Katheryn believes this new parasite to be life that originated in the cave environment and has never been exposed to the outside world.

Jack is also attacked by the creatures but manages to break free but is injured. The team occasionally stumble across scattered equipment and remains of previous explorers, and are unaware they are being stalked by the creatures. Jack also begins to exhibit a transformation of his senses, and physical features. The creatures attack again, Katheryn is unharmed but Dr. Nicolai is dragged away. As Jack tries in vain to free him, he sees the creatures are demon-like humanoids, and notices a recognizable tattoo on one of them. As the team and Jack argue about where to go next, Charlie climbs to an opening and is attacked, she manages to kill the creature but is gutted by it. Jack's transformations are beginning to show with his super-keen senses and inhumanly slanted pupils, reminiscing the demons'. Katheryn then concludes that both Jack, the previous explorers and all the rest of creatures mutated because of the parasite, as they were probably infected with it. In the case of humans, they resemble demons. As they realize Jack is quickly mutating into one of them, the team splits up, their trust in him shattered, but Tyler and Top stay with him. Jack, Tyler and Top discover a cavern littered with medieval skeletons/remains and realize that this is an ancient battleground between the creatures and the Knights Templar. It seemed the surviving knights built the church at the entrance in order to seal the cave and prevent future generations from entering and keeping the demons from getting out into the world.

More members of the team are lost and another exit is found in an underwater passage but as the creatures enter the cavern and steal the diving equipment necessary to get through the exit, there is a final struggle against the demons and only Tyler, Kathryn, and Top escape the cave and make it back to the surface. They return to civilization and part ways. Later Tyler asks Katheryn if Jack could have survived out in the open. She's silent, then says that before she'd thought that the parasite could only survive underground, but now she's uncertain and thinks that that maybe the parasite wants to get out. When she kisses him, she moves her sunglasses down below her eyes, revealing pupils similar to Jack's when he first showed signs of infection. Tyler suddenly realizes that Katheryn is infected with the parasite, and supposedly intends to infect the rest of the world. He runs after her into a crowd of people, but she has disappeared.

Cast

• Morris Chestnut as Top Buchanan
• Eddie Cibrian as Tyler McAllister
• Daniel Dae Kim as Alex Kim
• Kieran Darcy-Smith as Strode
• Cole Hauser as Jack McAllister
• Lena Headey as Kathryn Jannings
• Marcel Iureş as Dr. Nicolai
• Piper Perabo as Charlie
• Vlad Radescu as Dr. Bacovia
• Rick Ravanello as Briggs

Reception

The Cave received universally negative reviews, with a current rating of 13% on Rotten Tomatoes. The main complaint was the lack of character building and endless cliches, with one critic saying 'a generic duffer that is as exciting as a hole in the ground'.^{[citation needed]}

Box office

In the US, the film opened ranked #5 grossing a poor $6,147,294 at 2,195 sites, averaging $2,800. It went on to have a final US gross of $15,007,991. In Australia, it opened at 89 sites, averaging AUD$3,204 grossing AUD$285,121. It had a massive 2nd weekend decrease by 74%, and had a finishing gross of AUD$570,131. Worldwide, the film has grossed $33,296,457.

Similarities to other caving films

The Cave, The Descent, both released theatrically in 2005, and The Cavern, released on DVD in 2006, are three films with similar themes. All three films involve spelunking and terrifying subterranean life that hunts down the principal characters. The Descent was held as the most successful of the three according to ticket sales and critical reviews; however, The Cave was the only one of the three that was actually filmed inside a cave.

Soundtrack

The soundtrack was released on August 26, 2005 by Lakeshore Records, which features metal bands by Atreyu, Lacuna Coil, Diecast, Burning Brides, Ill Niño, Killswitch Engage, Shadows Fall, It Dies Today, Trivium and more. Also, the single Nemo by Nightwish is featured during the end credits of the film.

External links

• The Cave (film)
• The Cave at the Internet Movie Database
• The Cave at AllRovi
• The Cave at Rotten Tomatoes
• The Cave at Metacritic
• The Cave at Box Office Mojo