Catacombs (2007)

Just what I expected

Best movie of this year hands down!

As Good As It Gets

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

Traveling to visit her sister in Paris, a woman gets dragged along to a party underneath the city streets in the infamous maze of dead bodies buried there only to find a legend of a masked madman true who begins relentlessly pursuing her through the darkened, twisting corridors.While initially appearing to be something quite enjoyable, this here turned out to be a massive train-wreck. One of the biggest problems with this one is the completely and utter failure to utilize one of the greatest locations possible for a horror film in the catacombs of the dead buried under the streets of Paris. While we see mountains of bones and walls of skulls throughout, the fact that they're usually featured while the camera is shaking around violent trying to capture the intensity of a madman chasing after somebody or edited in a rapid criss-cross manner to render any amount of atmosphere present completely null and void by being unable to see what's going on. This is made even more evident with the ridiculousness of the finale, where it's revealed through two twist endings that not only was the entire effort pointless but also that a deranged killer is now loose on the world with an available assortment of bodies able to be traced right back to them. It makes no sense at all for the second one to come around, though the first is still pretty creative in content but just handled the complete wrong way as it was, and that really undermines the whole fact that the film spends an hour and a half with the one victim against the unseen killer that never really does any damage to her along the way, making the twist come around as a reinforcement of what happened rather than a big shock twist. It just doesn't work as it does and that makes for a rather disjointed and uneven time, despite the few good parts here. The back-story for the deformed killer is awesomely original and creative, the film is essentially one big chase sequence through underground caverns and leads to a series of impressive suspense scenes and general chilling moments, and the whole film carries on quickly enough to not get bored with her endless wandering around doing nothing for the main part of the film. Still, though, it's not enough to overcome the big flaws present.Rated R: Graphic Language, Graphic Violence, Brief Nudity and drug use.

Another prime example of what could have been an effective twenty-minute short getting the full 88-minute treatment and suffering for it. A girl is terrified by a scary prank and reacts by killing those responsible. There you go, that's the whole plot in a nutshell. Now imagine it rattling around inside an great big 88-minute nutshell, and you have 'Catacombs'. There's just not enough story to go the distance, so basically the majority of the movie is spent watching the increasingly-distraught heroine running up and down many, many gloomy corridors and stumbling through several half-lit service-rooms until you just can't take it any more and the fast forward button begins to earn its keep. The entire mid-section of 'Catacombs' was like being trapped in a video-game, desperately trying every last nook and cranny in an attempt to finally exit the level. Given the genuinely dangerous and life-threatening chills and spills of the girl's ordeal, the movie's 'it was all a prank' ending was highly improbable, to make a polite understatement. All up, 'Catacombs' was a waste of time, money and effort. You're better off with a cup of tea and a good book. In closing, while the movie was pretty bad, it must be said that Pink (or Alecia Moore, as she was born) wasn't. It wasn't much of a role (more of a beefed-up cameo, really) but despite the extreme opinions of some reviewers here, Pink actually did okay. She was at least as good as ever I've seen Sharon Stone...

As a lover of the horror genre I am tired of films that rely on blood and gore to not scare but simply gross out the viewer, I prefer films that work on more of a psychological level and this one definitely does. It starts of fast with two sisters visiting each other in Paris, They decide to go to a party in the catacombs under the city and all hell breaks loose. The acting was very good for a horror film and I thought that the atmosphere was very well done and made the film very creepy. The direction was a little erratic at times and I couldn't always follow what was going on but other than that the film was the most disturbing movie I have seen since The Exorcist.

There needs to be a moratorium on American horror movies being made in Europe. I love European horror movies - they're really kicking our butts right now with that stuff. But American movies, made over there? ugh. What ends up happening is almost all secondary roles are filled by random Euro actors, speaking English with weird Euro accents. This movie may be the worst example of this - but also check out the Blade and Underworld series for examples of what I call Over-Eurofication. Nothing against our brothers and sisters overseas, though.Also, don't bother making a horror movie without attempting to make a likable lead. Filmmakers, it's hard to empathize with pretty little petite women. Men resent them for not going out with us, and women dislike them because they are so outrageously skinny. Instead, how about an attractive, but more normal sized man or woman? The Hostel movies make a similar mistake by forcing us to root for a bunch of frat Boy-types - and no one, but no one, likes them. The reason Judd Apatow movies do well, and the only reason, is that people generally like shlubby, decent guys. They are nonthreatening, so we are not threatened. Keep it in mind.Another thing, don't attempt a full-length movie with 2 pages of script, unless you're some kind of genius artiste. This movie had a 10 minute setup, the obligatory 5 minute goth rave (see blade et al), and then 70 minutes of a tunnel chase. I've seen it before: it's called Quake, and it's better with rocket launchers.And the twist ending? OMG (and I am loathe to use that term). The whole point of the movie is a prank? The payoff after the twist is somewhat satisfying, watching the pixie-ish heroine lay waste to her annoying b***h sister and her euro-trash minions.And Pink? Girl actually can act - and is perfect as the Worst Woman in the World - she can sing too! Though it's not my kind of music. This is not my kind of movie.