From Twisted Pictures the production company that bought us the Saw franchise comes a new kind of horror film called Catacombs. Well maybe it’s not so new, as it does follow a slasher in the dark kind of format, yet the movie takes place in France in the largest mass grave in history; the catacombs under Paris. Now before I get into to much of the plot detail, while doing some research on cults in Europe, it’s a newly well known fact that many young people between the ages of twenty and forty have turned their backs on Christian beliefs and have begun cults in which they worship demons and fallen angels in the catacombs of many European cites. It’s a known fact that many of these cults hold large orgy like parties and in some cases murders have even be committed.
Pretty much in a nutshell, this film borders on the occult and the actions in which the plot takes place is during a rave like party in the catacombs. In the film legend has it that a cult bent on bringing forth the anti-Christ actually took a young child down into the catacombs and raised him to be just that. However instead of some divine evil powers, the child is more of a killer, which he kills any unlucky victim he comes across in the cites catacombs. This is all explained as legend at the beginning of the film. Victoria (Shannyn Sossamon) is on her way to Paris to visit her sister Carolyn (Alecia “Pink” Moore). When she arrives her sister drags her along to an underground rave like party in the catacombs. However, bad things begin to happen and Victoria finds herself lost in the catacombs with a raving madman of a killer following her.
The script for the film has its flaws but is not all that bad, there is a main sense of character development around Victoria and all the rest of the characters in the film where pretty much underdeveloped as if they had no meaning to be in the film other than to suffer at the killers fate. The dialogue and story where alright, but nothing special.
The acting in the film is actually not that bad, there are so scenes in which I didn’t think the acting was all that great involving some of the actors in the film. I’m sure audiences will pick up on this as well. It at times seems that certain people didn’t know the script all that well which effected their performances. The leads in the film are pretty good, especially Shannyn Sossamon whom is the main focus as Victoria in the film. Her character is supposed to be paranoid and coming off being greatly depressed just to find herself in the underground hells of the Paris. Sossamon showed a performance that resembled the character in the film and she pulled it quite nicely.
As far as production values goes the movie does look good when it comes to set design, locations and even the photography is not half bad. The film is lit very dark, so it is hard at times to really get a gist of the action taking place. The thing that bothered me most though was where the production was actually going. Sure it had decent effects and the likes. But the filmmakers seemed to just want to kill time with the script as most of it is just running and twisting and turning though the catacombs with not much action going on. This slowed down the over all flow of the plot and the film began a giant snore-fest between action sequences.
Overall, Catacombs has many flaws as a film, certain scenes are really boring while others offer some great plot development and have some good action scenes and scares. However the boring scenes take over most of the time and it becomes a hard film to get though. I think Twisted Pictures and Lion Gates where debating whether or not this film was worth the time to really put money into and decided that it was a much better fit for a direct to DVD rather than put it in theaters. They made the right decision. Catacombs is a film in which some people might like, but others will not enjoy at all. It has it’s good moments but there are plenty of flaws that can’t go unnoticed.
– Horror Bob
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- Interview with Andrew J. Rausch - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Rick Popko and Dan West - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Director Stevan Mena (Malevolence) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Screenwriter Jeffery Reddick (Day of the Dead 2007) - January 22, 2015
- Teleconference interview with Mick Garris (Masters of Horror) - January 22, 2015
- A Day at the Morgue with Corri English (Unrest) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Writer/Director Nacho Cerda (The Abandoned, Aftermath) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Actress Thora Birch (Dark Corners, The Hole, American Beauty) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Actor Jason Behr, Plus Skinwalkers Press Coverage - January 22, 2015
