The Cave (2005)

11% of critics liked it
(106 reviews)
37% of users liked it
(91,351 ratings)

Terror lurks deep beneath the surface of the Earth in this thriller. While on a dig in a Romanian forest, a group of scientists make a startling find -- they find a huge abbey, dating back to the 13th Century, which was built over the entrance to a massive network of subterranean caves. Eager to… More Terror lurks deep beneath the surface of the Earth in this thriller. While on a dig in a Romanian forest, a group of scientists make a startling find -- they find a huge abbey, dating back to the 13th Century, which was built over the entrance to a massive network of subterranean caves. Eager to learn what lurks within the caves, the scientists discover to their peril that a large part of the cave system is under water. Undeterred, the remaining scientists hire a team of American spelunkers who are trained in exploring underwater caves, led by brothers Jack (Cole Hauser) and Tyler (Eddie Cibrian). Armed with new high-tech SCUBA gear that allows them to stay under water for a full 24 hours, Jack, Tyler, and the rest of their crew dive in to investigate the caves, but a mishap traps them in a cavern beneath the surface, and they soon discover they are not alone, as strange and bloodthirsty creatures make their presence known. The Cave also stars Morris Chestnut, Rick Ravanello, Piper Perabo, and Lena Headey. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

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Rating, Runtime: PG-13, 1 hr. 37 min.
Directed By: Bruce Hunt
Written By: Michael Steinberg
Genres: Action & Adventure, Horror, Science Fiction & Fantasy

In Theaters: Aug 26, 2005 Wide
On DVD: Jan 3, 2006
Studio: Screen Gems

Critic Reviews

Scott Brown, Entertainment Weekly
Fright-wise, The Cave is a dry hole.
Dennis Lim, Village Voice
Spare and single-minded, The Cave is an insistently entertaining piece of pulp.
Teresa Wiltz, Washington Post
The Cave isn't just a bad movie, it's a very, very, very bad movie, so bad that it can't even redeem itself by turning into high camp.
Robert Koehler, Variety
Feels stunningly familiar as it goes through the rote edicts of the scientific crew vs. toothy beastie formula.
Geoff Pevere, Toronto Star
Somewhere deep beneath the Carpathian mountains, something unholy stirs: It's an unspeakable stinker of a movie called The Cave.
Peter Hartlaub, San Francisco Chronicle
A claustrophobic horror film that provides nothing original beyond its underground setting.
Joshua Starnes, ComingSoon.net
The Cave is a decently crafted but unoriginal and uninspiring creature feature with a few moments of true entertainment that the rest of the film never matches up to.
Cole Smithey, ColeSmithey.com
Replete with winged undersea cave monsters, unlikely mountain climbing heroics and a mutating microbe that turns its victims into creatures-in-waiting "The Cave" is a paint-by-numbers thriller lacking in pigment.
Cynthia Fuchs, Common Sense Media
Hectic slasher movie about monsters. Too scary for little ones.
Russ Breimeier, Christianity Today
About what you'd expect from a low budget, B-movie destined to reside among the direct-to-video releases at Blockbuster and the Saturday night features on the Sci-Fi Channel.
Pablo Villaca, Cinema em Cena
O roteiro é ridículo, mas o filme consegue criar algumas seqüências tensas. Ainda assim, empalidece frente ao ótimo (e similar) The Descent.
Brent Simon, Now Playing Magazine
A completely anonymous and forgettable PG-13 creature feature.
Steve "Uncle Creepy" Barton, Dread Central
Somewhere in The Cave lies a good film. Maybe one day the good folks at Sony Pictures will dive deep into the all too obviously cut footage and restore it for us.
David Nusair, Reel Film Reviews
...a dull, thoroughly unpleasant horror flick...
Ed Gonzalez, Slant Magazine
The Cave has zero sex appeal but may turn you on to cave diving.
Steve "Uncle Creepy" Barton, Dread Central
...despite its shortcomings, The Cave does deliver on some of its promises.

Read all 16 critic reviews

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Featured Audience Ratings

Jeff "

I view The Cave as a bad rip-off of the superior British horror film, The Descent. The Cave basically follows the exact same path, except its a lot less inspired. The film is so not inspired that it's ridiculously stupid with actors who over do it, and they try to create… More
I view The Cave as a bad rip-off of the superior British horror film, The Descent. The Cave basically follows the exact same path, except its a lot less inspired. The film is so not inspired that it's ridiculously stupid with actors who over do it, and they try to create something horrifying and tense on screen. If you've seen The Descent, you've seen this one. A badly acted film riddled with clichés from every possible horror film. I thought that this film was a pure waste of time because it didn't do anything good with its plot. The film relied on clichés the whole time, and the film was predictable. The horror was so poorly done that it was laughable. I thought that it was one of the films biggest flaws, aside from the terrible acting from the "actors". The film had no effective atmosphere, and thus it killed the feel of the overall film. The Descent was genuinely frightening, but this is laughable. The performances were terrible too. I had a hard time with the awful acting, and I really didn't care who lived or died in the film. I just thought this was a pointless attempt at horror and it was terrible. This is one of the worst horror films that I had the misfortune of seeing. This is a bad horror film plain and simple, and it doesn't have anything interesting going on, on screen. This recycles old ideas that we've seen from previous horror films, and it's nothing exciting or interesting for that matter. Just a film to steal your money away.
Wahida K

I dont know how many similar Movies I have seen and I just cannt believe they go on making the same old stuff till it doesnt make sense any more, it is just to violent. Watching this Movie I had the feeling I have seen it several times although it was my first time, it is just the… More
I dont know how many similar Movies I have seen and I just cannt believe they go on making the same old stuff till it doesnt make sense any more, it is just to violent. Watching this Movie I had the feeling I have seen it several times although it was my first time, it is just the plot is similar for e.g. The Descent.
Dead A

Whoa the ending part was seriously mysterious. Are they going to make a second part of this? Hope so. It clearly states that.
KJ P

Was not good, and to top it off, it never even had anything going for it!
Jason O

Most seem to dislike this movie, but I loved it so much when I rented it that I watched it more than once (rare for me) and not long after went out and bought it (very rare)! I know it's not really anything different from your run of the mill creature horror, but the… More
Most seem to dislike this movie, but I loved it so much when I rented it that I watched it more than once (rare for me) and not long after went out and bought it (very rare)! I know it's not really anything different from your run of the mill creature horror, but the creatures' echoing sounds and their looks are just too cool! Also, I've always been fascinated by caves and love the extra features on the DVD. I may be the only one, but I much much prefer The Cave to The Descent. Watch for when you see the arm of one of the creatures and see numbers/symbols. That tells you what these creatures really are.
Coxxie M

the only good thing was seeing Piper Perabo falling off a cliff... that happened didnt it?
Jens S

Having been released almost simultaneously with the "The Descent", which is also about a cave expedition gone bad, this film has to deal with getting compared to the excellent British horror thriller. While the set up isn't comparable, what follows soon after is: group… More
Having been released almost simultaneously with the "The Descent", which is also about a cave expedition gone bad, this film has to deal with getting compared to the excellent British horror thriller. While the set up isn't comparable, what follows soon after is: group goes into caves, gets locked in, has to find a way out, is not alone down there. While this film is never boring, even exciting on a few occasions it loses in most aspects to The Descent. The characters remain rather flat and uninteresting, their fate is somewhat predictable. The whole film is less gory and scary, less claustrophobic and way more unrealistic than his sibling. That's still okay entertainment for a rainy afternoon but easily forgotten soon after.
Luke B

As we all know Hollywood doesn't need to produce remakes for unoriginal ideas. Armageddon and Deep Impact. Volcano and Dante's Peak. Here we have The Cave which is the same story as The Descent. Only it's absolute shit compared to the brilliance of The Descent. How can… More
As we all know Hollywood doesn't need to produce remakes for unoriginal ideas. Armageddon and Deep Impact. Volcano and Dante's Peak. Here we have The Cave which is the same story as The Descent. Only it's absolute shit compared to the brilliance of The Descent. How can two such similar films be so different? Well The Cave is typical Hollywood, so we are handed cookie cutter characters (The Dr, The leader, the angry one), some political correctness. Men, women, a black and an Asian, note to writers, if a description of your film sounds like the beginning of a joke just start over. Everyone is dull and has such stilted dialogue that it doesn't matter which character says what, they're all the same. The monsters are more is MORE. It's a monster, it's a parasite, it can fly with a stupid stupid twist (Descent left it's monsters origins to speculation). By the end I didn't care, my mind was wondering and thinking about The Descent (you should watch that, it's amazing). Then came the final scene which crapped over all the shit that came before it, and that shit had dried up so the smell wasn't so bad, but after the stupidity of the last scene it just wreaked again. Though the cinematography was pretty good.
Lorenzo v

It's not surprising that this film was a dud, it really didn't have anywhere to go. A group of expeditioners go into a cave I mile underground, become trapped and then try to escape whilst getting picked off one by one by some undiscovered species that has evolved in there.… More
It's not surprising that this film was a dud, it really didn't have anywhere to go. A group of expeditioners go into a cave I mile underground, become trapped and then try to escape whilst getting picked off one by one by some undiscovered species that has evolved in there. It is not scary at all and barely thrilling, and it is always dark and all you see is flashlights and faces of the main characters. I could barely understand what the characters were saying and I had pretty much no idea what they were trying to achieve. There was no storyline at all and the acting wasn't anything special. On the plus side, there are a few cool special effects and stunts, but nothing much else. 1.5/5
Dean M

It's hard to get really excited about this film. It's got cool creatures and a nifty little premise of spelunkers getting trapped underground and having to fight for their lives against nasty critters in the dark. It's a part like The Relic. The… More
It's hard to get really excited about this film. It's got cool creatures and a nifty little premise of spelunkers getting trapped underground and having to fight for their lives against nasty critters in the dark. It's a part like The Relic. The problem really lies in the face that it's just not that interesting. Perhaps it's the lackluster characters who you really don't care about, or maybe it's the should-be-but-aren't-all-that-thrilling action set pieces. Try Descent instead.
Curtis L

Bah. Dumb.
Dean !

A very poor film, you can barely call it a horror. Watch The Descent instead.
Dr Blood

The opening scenes led me to believe that this would be a better version of "The Descent" but as soon as the new team of scientists turned up in the film I just knew it was going to stink. None of the characters were remotely interesting. Not even the presence of Russell… More
The opening scenes led me to believe that this would be a better version of "The Descent" but as soon as the new team of scientists turned up in the film I just knew it was going to stink. None of the characters were remotely interesting. Not even the presence of Russell from "Invasion" and Daniel Dae Kim from "Lost" were going to save this movie.
Drew S

The Cave was released in Britain around the same time The Descent was in order to compete with it. Take a look at the critical and box-office receptions of both films, then decide for yourself which is better.
Jason S

Monsters in the dark. Beware.
Sanjaya &

Not scariest as the poster have... The ending was annoying me too...
Jacob P

Excellent visual effects\creature design, with a great story to it.
Joseph E

Could've of been alot better, but it wasn't as bad you'd expect. It was exceptionally well acted, but horrificly directed
Joey N

At parts it's so muddled that I literally could not tell what was going on because the editing was so hectic. Thinking about The Descent is scarier than watching The Cave.
Sylvester K

Don't be fooled by the poster and the trailer. Uttely disappointed after watching it. So campy and predictable, don't bother.