Catacombs (2007)

This film has amazing potential including the mysterious underground catacombs of Paris, a rave in the crypts, weirdos galore including the lead -- even a goat monster on the prowl. Unfortunately, while it offers some entertainment value, it devolves into a jumble of underground in the dark shots that are not patched together well, and in the end, nothing much to take it beyond the potential and into the realm of a good movie.

With hundreds of miles of catacombs to play with you would think they could have dreamed up some interesting places to stop. Maybe the Nazi bunker which is down there would have added some creep. Or a secret meeting place of a cult. An old crazy recluse. I mean, something more than endless stairs and passageways and pools of water and places that look like the attic of an old house in need of a rummage sale. There's just nothing to make you go "Wow!" or prickle the hairs on the back of your neck.

It doesn't help that the attractive lead is an asexual emo queen. Sure, she's been through a lot, but most of her actions consist of screaming and running, followed by more screaming and running, topped off by more screaming and running. By the end she is thoroughly unlikeable mess with no real redeeming qualities, and that's before the real "end" which I won't spoil here.

Actually the best part of the movie was the flashlight. To steal a line from Will Smith: "I have GOT'S to get me one of those." Not only does it last forever, and display immunity to immersion in water, it survives falling ~100 feet onto hard concrete and doesn't lose a lumen in the process. Hmmm. The fact that the flashlight steals the show says something about this movie. Not a bad movie. Just not a good one.

Fmovies: Few things are as infuriating as great horror settings that are entirely wasted on trite scenarios. Catacombs – immense and ominously dark mazes where thousands of ancient dead bodies are stored – form the absolute greatest locations to set a horrific story in, but the creators of this movie ruined all the potential they were offered here. Surely this could have been an interesting film, but the unoriginal script almost immediately reverts to clichéd situations, chaotic editing and creating false suspense. The emotionally unstable Victoria travels to Paris, following an invitation from her sister Carolyn, and promptly gets dragged into the wild nightlife of illegal parties thrown in the catacombs underneath the city center. When she gets separated from the group, Victoria finds herself relentlessly pursued by a raving madman and they expect us to believe it concerns an inbred and carnivorous monster wearing a goat head mask. You'll notice right away there are several things wrong with the narrative. Why would the partying sister bother to invite such an uptight individual like Victoria to a place where drugs and hideous Techno music reign? Why would an insatiable killing machine exclusively chase isolated party-goers when there are hundreds of unsuspecting easy targets waiting to be butchered in the room next door? Once Victoria is trapped inside the underground labyrinth, "Catacombs" turns into an intolerably boring and irritating film. She just stumbles around the passageways for hours, praying the batteries of her flashlight won't die – which they do a couple of times, of course, and you'll find yourself staring at a black screen throughout very long periods - and suffering ridiculous injuries, like cutting her leg on the spokes of a rusty bicycle. Oh, the horror! This movie is slow and boring, the hectic editing of randomly creepy images is pointless, the soundtrack is god-awful and not a single one of the lead characters is even mildly amiable. Victoria constantly whines and, to me personally, it's a complete mystery why she's such a confused woman. She's young, attractive, supposedly intelligent and free to spontaneously leave everything behind and travel to Europe. So … what the heck is the problem? The French boys serve as dumb screen fillings and Carolyn is positively one of the most annoying horror characters ever. Pink is an even worse actress than singer, for that matter. Throughout almost its entire playtime, "Catacombs" was destined to receive a rating 1 out of 10 from me, but then came the ending which suddenly brought an unexpected highpoint. There are two end "twists", by the way. One is painfully frustrating and caused me to hate the film even more, but luckily there's a second one which turned tragedies around a bit and all of a sudden the film was good enough to increase my rating towards two.

There are horror movies that are good in general sense (like Jaws) and movies who do have limited appeal for special audiences. This movie is not great in general sense, but it is pretty appealing to those horror movie fans who love underground, claustrophobic horrors like Descent or Creep. The setting is very good, but the props are weaker somewhat. Story is a mess and yes, Pink is very annoying so I do agree with someone else "just say NO to Pink!" I actually do love underground movies like Descent so I have pretty much enjoyed this one too. This is not A class movie but still pretty amusing one. So if you enjoy underground / labyrinth setting, you may enjoy the Catacombs as well.

Catacombs fmovies. After reading what people had said about this I was geared up to dislike this film. In fact, I wanted to dislike it. However, I did in fact enjoy this film. It is intense, dreary, disturbing, scary, anxiety provoking and it went by very fast. The lead actress is good. The photography is good. I found the sets very well done. If you like The Decent you'd probably enjoy this.

I will say this; "Pink" comes off as a low class skank to be blunt. I'm sure the French were glad she came back to America. She is the least likable character in the film. She looks like a skank, talks like one and probably smells like one too. But, maybe that is how Pink wanted her character to appear.

Whatever. You can't deny that this film is effective, Pink or no Pink. I think it is worth viewing. Check it out.

I watched this movie y'day and must say it is a good one...the lead actress Shannyn Sossamon is natural in depicting her fear and nervousness...BTW i just happened to watch another latest movie of her "One Missed Call" and that too is good... there are many horror movies which deal with gore and bloodshed only, this is not that type, rather kinda chased down by a maniac in a deep dark tunnel can breakdown anybody's nerves... however everything became clear towards the end and you gonna like the climax, its undoubtedly different only that i can say... When I am writing I saw this one got an average rating of 4.7 which is very unfair with this movie...I would say a decent 6.5 should be given... only one comment about the music, it could have been more spine chilling....

People are slating this as a "bad" film however it is a decent enough, unnerving thriller that doesn't quite give the feeling of crushing claustrophobia the Descent does, and doesn't quite set you on the edge of your seat like monster chase films such as Creep does...

Some camera shots are a bit too "arty" for my taste, and detracts slightly from the overall effect seeing as it is a horror film, however it is easy to see what they were trying to achieve with such closed in, minimal light sourced tunneled shots that fade into the distance only as the main character rounds the bend taking the torchlight out of shot.

But overall, a good enough film with a slightly transparent ending that will either have you smiling or groaning!