journal: GET OUT OF THE CAVE (BUT DO EXPLORE THE SPECIAL DVD FEATURES).  DESCEND ELSEWHERE.

Okay, so it was finally time, finally a Blockbuster night for The Cave, the 2005 film directed by Bruce Hunt, written by Michael Steinberg and Tegan West.

The film's plot is wrapped more around cave diving, which is a cool discipline blending the technical skills of diving with the strategic maneuvering of caving.  There are some large holes in the back story which were cut (or perhaps never filmed) because of budget or time, but I'll skip my whole problem with a bunch of explorers finding a church in the Carpathain Mountains in Romania

The story is about a cave diving team headed by Jack and his brother Ty and how the team's combinations of skillsets (all photogenically muscular, well gym-ed guys, and a skilled rock climber gal) is hired by a scientist who is part archaeologist part evolutionary biologist (so the plot seems to illustrate, anyway), and his coincidentally (?) photogenic associate researcher, Kathryn.   They all excavate the site of where this Romanian church once stood before some explorer-types blew themselves up (and ruining some undoubtedly painstakingly assembled mosaics of the Knights Templar chasing down giant skeleton bony bat demon things (man these Knights are everywhere---in Da Vinci's codes, in National Treasures underneath Wall Street, inspiring Val Kilmer to become a Saint...)

Down everyone goes into the abyss, following good caver safety (yelling "On belay!" and "Off rope!") as well as bad caver safety (free climbing, I only counted one and a half light sources per caver...and Top, one of the cavers, could've saved his sprained leg had Ty yelled "Rock!" instead of "Hey! SomethingsfallingdownjustslippedouttamyhandswatchoutforthefallingTHUMP!")

Soon, the evolutionary side of things kicks in when we learn that parasites are causing evolution (and evolving humans from greedy explorers to flying bat things within 30 years....which is more Creationist than Evolutionist by the time scale....fully mutated unrecognizable flying, sonar seeking creatures?  Do the CDC and DOD know that this parasite exists?

Definitely a creative way to make an adventure film out of the very not popularized (unfortunately) discipline of cave diving and certainly good promo for the sport itself, crazy bat evolved demons notwithstanding.

But the real reason to rent the DVD---the 20 minute (-ish) documentary about the underwater film unit led by two folks from Karst Productions, who talk about the real world of cave diving, their own explorations (they cave dived a glacier!), and their meshing of realist and fanstasy-horror in helping out the crew shoot the underwater scenes (in HD no less).   A full length documentary on just what Karst Productions does for a living would have made for much more entertaining caving.  Quite extraordinary---showing that the real dangers to fear have nothing to do with the Knights Templar but with humans panicking in literally life-threatening situations of their own making.

For a true blend of horror whose psychological implications are ever so realistic for any caver who's kept the voices of being trapped in the unknown far in the back of their heads, go rent The Descent instead.  Let's hope that for many cavers, the last source of light aren't candles on a birthday cake somewhere in the abyss of delusional psychosis.

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