Catacombs (2007)

Please don't spend money on this.

Dreadfully Boring

While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

Amazing worth wacthing. So good. Biased but well made with many good points.

Warning: Please skip these comments if you are offended by the mention of religion in movie discussions Started watching 'Catacombs' on amazon prime yesterday afternoon. The story deals with a group that holds wild parties in the catacombs below Paris. They have loud music set up, bars, a stage, all sorts of things that would seem to be impossible given the location. Since it's illegal to do this they constantly change the location of the parties so that the police can not find them. They say in the film that there are many hundreds of miles of catacombs below the city. This is probably an extreme exaggeration for the sake of the story. The description of the plot at the IMDb intrigued me "On her first trip to Paris, a young woman hits a party in the Catacombs, the 200-mile labyrinth of limestone tunnels under the city that's lined with the remains of 7 million people. Separated from her friends, she becomes convinced that someone or something is chasing her." Sounds interesting right? So I put on the film. Right off viewing it was hard, it's one of those movies that seems to think people have such a short attention span they have to flash from one scene quickly to another or we will lose interest. It wasn't done constantly; there were periods of normal scenes where we have time to adjust to what we are looking at. I held out for about a half hour or so to see what was ahead, hoping they might stop the irritating quick changes. The final straw for me was when one character started telling some back story about a satanic like group. They showed images of important Christian religious figures being defiled. Like the the head on a statue of the Virgin Mary being smashed up and more. This to me was upsetting so I simply turned off the movie. I've noticed that Christianity has become an easy target in many films and other media now a days. It's become a target while other religion's symbols have not, perhaps for fear of retribution by them. Can you imagine a movie showing the destruction of the Koran for instance and the up roar that would create ? Too bad these sort of scenes seem to be used for shock value. Anyway, I don't recommend the film for the reasons stated.

Being a horror fan, I've decided to venture out and watch Catacombs, hoping for substance and surprises. Nope. Never happened. Even worse, I ended up hating the heroine for her incessant whining and screaming and vulnerability. An hour of cheap camera tricks and contrasted lighting stresses you out, paired with moving flashlights just to make sure your eyes are sore near the end. The history of the Catacombs remains vague and having been to Paris and having French as my mother tongue I was a little insulted by the mere sweep Pink has to say about such a fascinating place. So, if you really want to watch it, a positive point is it will make you tense and dizzy from all that running. But, all in all, not worse than some films, but certainly painful enough for a mere 3/10.

Well, from the get go of this picture you can imagine almost everything that's gonna happen. If you are a daily movie watcher, you'll probably think that in the end, it was all Victoria's imagination and sick mind-- but hey, that's not what happens this time! Pink's character is extremely annoying, I was praying for her to die in the first scenes."Catacombs" is a strange film that was going very well until it's main character got lost in the cave; after that, it became a little boring and tiring to watch. I expected more story and less cat and mouse race. But, I have to admit this story is pretty original and runs away from most clichés, which is admirable for such low-budget production. The ending is ridiculous in my point of view, but it depends on what you like in a movie. Thought being entertaining at most times, doesn't deserve more than five stars.

Catacombs is about as basic as scary movies get. It's a pretty girl in the dark with a flashlight trying to get away from a guy in a goat mask. Occasionally, these filmmakers work way too hard to try and convince the audience (and probably themselves) that they're doing something more sophisticated and they throw a nihilistic twist in at the end. None of that disguises the fact that this entire script could have been written on the back of a cocktail napkin.Victoria (Shannyn Sossamon) is the quiet repressed sister who gets invited to Paris by her free spirited sibling Carolyn (Pink). Yeah, the pop singer Pink is in this thing. She's listed in the credits under her real name, so I wasn't expecting to see her. When she popped up on screen, I disgustedly said out loud "Oh, for God's sake". Not because I expected her to be terrible in the film, which she sort of is, but because I look more like Shannyn Sossamon's sister than Pink does. David Spade would have been more convincing in the role. Sossamon is a slim, dark, angular beauty. Pink looks like a very pretty bulldog that was dunked in peroxide. Imagine watching The Godfather and instead of Sonny Corleone looking like James Caan, he looked like Charles Nelson Reilly. That's the effect Pink has in this movie.Anyway, Carolyn introduces Victoria to her Eurotrash friends and then takes her to an illegal dance party in the catacombs under the streets of Paris. Victoria gets told the story of a killer in a goat mask who lives in the catacombs, winds up separated from everyone and unsurprisingly winds up getting chased through the catacombs by the goat mask killer. She gets away from him, literally wanders around in the dark for about a half hour where nothing happens and as she's just about to escape from the catacombs, the big nihilistic twist kicks in. I've seen worse twist endings, but that doesn't mean this one is any good.There are parts of Catacombs that are really bad, where every visual cliché from every heavy metal music video or horror movie of the last 10 years gets thrown onto the screen. There are other parts, though, that are actually affecting. This film is a bit like those "ghost hunter" shows you find on basic cable. It's silly and contrived and your first instinct is to snicker at it, but the rough simplicity of a frightened person alone in the dark, wondering what's going to happen next, can still get to you.The story begins and ends with bursts of high energy, but there's a whole lot of nothing in between. None of the characters rise above the generic. You do get to see some random naked boobs, but not from the titular stars of this production. And what violence there is, is more suggested than graphic.Catacombs is a horror movie for Amish teenagers. If you've never seen a horror movie before, you might find it exciting. If you're at all familiar with the genre, you'll recognize this as another sub-mediocre entry. I'd probably have harsher things to say about this movie, except I watched Rob Zombie's Halloween II earlier this week. In contrast with that shambling monstrosity, I'm forced to recognize a certain level of competence in this film. So, if you ever watch a horror movie so awful it makes you feel like the director has propped open your mouth and urinated down your throat, you might get some enjoyment out of watching Catacombs. Unless your aesthetic standards have been pushed down that low, you're probably better off avoiding it.