The Devil's Tomb (2009)

Plot so thin, it passes unnoticed.

Brilliant and touching

Clever and entertaining enough to recommend even to members of the 1%

A film of deceptively outspoken contemporary relevance, this is cinema at its most alert, alarming and alive.

I watched this movie twice. I really enjoyed it. The suspense of trying to figure out what was down there was captivating. When I watch a movie, I look for "The message" in a movie. It does make it better when you know the Characters in a movie. This movie to me was very Spiritual. It was letting us know of some of the things that was going on in the Spirit Realm. It wasn't scary, or dull. But very informative of this world past and future on A Spiritual Level. It show how some of us are so Easily Deceived.In not telling what all happened. It left one of the main Characters Cuba Gooding Jr. Awaken to his purpose in Life. Now watch it again.

What would you get if you took John Carpenter's Prince of Darkness, set it underground, changed the characters from students to soldiers, and really pumped up the Christian portion? You get the Devil's Tomb. I just caught it as a free streaming film. It wasn't bad, but I certainly had hoped for more.There is a great cast in this film, but almost all of them seem to have forgotten how to act. Cuba Gooding Jr is wooden and unbelievable (and the opening "badass" voice-over is pretty hilarious in his high tenor voice). Henry Rollins can do many things, but portray a priest is not any of them. You just want him to buy it and get off screen.Of all of them, Ron Pearlman shines, stealing the scenes (to few) that he is in.Seriously though, if you want to see a more enjoyable version of this film? Watch John Carpenter's Prince of Darkness.Both movies contain: References to Satan as the villain A strange cult of possessed followers Minions of the villain being taken over through gushing mouth fluidsPoD has Alice Cooper DT has Ron Perlman (who gets more screen time than Alice Cooper did).

Take ideas and plot points from Alien, Aliens, Event Horizon, and (especially) Prince of Darkness and add some absurdity, sprinkle with blood and implausible characters and this is what you get.Those were all vastly better films but this isn't quite as horrible as some junk on SyFy so if it's free to watch you could do worse. I gave it a 5 due to some familiar faces in the cast and the job they do and the average-looking blood and gore. Story-wise they didn't seem to put much effort into it besides "adapting" from better movies. Also amusing were the military tactics used in the Iraq flashbacks but I'm not sure they meant for me to chuckle during the battle scenes.If you want a much better film along the same lines, watch Prince of Darkness instead and during the slow parts imagine space marines using electronic trackers that never seem to work, dodging acid-spewing creatures while running into long-dead loved ones without wondering how they happened to be there. The 5 is generous in my opinion but this could have been a lot worse.

The Devil's Tomb feels like one of those cheap DTV horror films, only with a big name cast. It's been done many times before in DTV films, maybe not as bad, but it's still not very good. It feels very cheap looking, with Cuba looking silly with a mad scowl on his face throughout the movie, he doesn't look too pleased to be there. The effects themselves are good for its budget, but it's too overly gory with the way it's done, with a ridiculous amount of blood coming from the evil characters, it felt too over the top. This isn't as awful as Way Of War, but Cuba is much too good to be starring in the type of junk that Seagal is putting out now-a days. The action is very sparse, with a lot of junky dialog to sit through and characters I didn't give a damn about. I really don't know what happened to Cuba's career, but I hope he revives it soon, because watching such a talented actor like him flounder in this type of garbage is just sad.Performances. Cuba Gooding Jr. isn't very good here. He walks around with an annoyed scowl throughout the movie, and sleepwalks through the whole thing. Taryn Manning is OK as The Doc, but her character is highly unlikable. Jason London is OK, but doesn't have a whole lot to do. Henry Rollins isn't much better. Ron Perlman must have needed a pay-check, same goes to Ray Winstone.Bottom line. Sad days for Cuba Gooding, but being the fan I am I'll continue to view his work, I just hope he lives up to his potential once again. Movie is not recommended3/10