Caved In

Christopher Atkins of "The Blue Lagoon" and "Dracula Rising" stars as John Palmer, the head of a family of professional cave guides. Palmer is unwittingly deceived into helping international thieves find an entrance to an abandoned Swiss mine. Within its walls is a "bridal chamber" of enormous emeralds. Unfortunately, it is surrounded by a colony of giant, prehistoric beetles that are prepared to tear intruders apart. Made for the Sci-Fi cable channel, "Caved In: Prehistoric Terror" is fun and exciting. It has an interesting prologue that is set in 1948. A group of Swiss miners find a room with walls imbedded with huge emeralds. Gigantic beetles stream out of the room like a black flood of death; they slaughter everyone except one man who is physically and emotionally crippled. His grandson, Marcel, will kill anyone who stands in his way of obtaining those emeralds. He hires Palmer to take him and his friends into the abandoned mine. Suspenseful chases and gory dismem... Read more

Caved In (Richard Pepin, 2006) Did you ever wonder why Christopher Atkins, who seemed to have the world at his feet after The Blue Lagoon and A Night in Heaven twenty-five years ago, suddenly faded into obscurity? Well, look no further than this monstrosity, which stars Atkins as a spelunking guide whose party, comprised of jewel thieves, is menaced by giant mutant rhinoceros beetles. Yes, folks, you got that right. And now I don't have to spend another paragraph giving you a plot summary, because, well, really, that's it. Come to think of it, Caved In is actually a haven for Hollywood has-beens. Angela Featherstone (Con Air, Ivansxtc) plays Atkins' wife. Colm Meaney (Star Trek: The Next Generation, the best actor in this movie by a country mile) is the guy whose financial backing makes the expedition possible. David Palffy (House of the Dead-- okay, I didn't say everyone involved had made good movies at any point) is the sweet-talking head of the jewel thieves. Etc. About the on... Read more

Sci-Fi Channel be damned. i never thought they could ever produce a film worth purchasing, but they have. a truly entertaining and original bug movie. A local is con'd out of his home so that miners can dig in his land for riches. what they find are giant beetles with a thirst for human flesh. meanwhile a family of adventurers move in to the area and begin a cave diving tour. they are soon contracted by mercenaries hoping to find out what happened to the mine unaware of the giant beetles below. they decend into the caves and are shut in by a quake leaving them stranded in a cave with man-eaters. The wife and daughter are on the surface and are quickly under siege from the flesh eating bugs. they must find a way, both those on the surface and those below, to stop the pissed off bugs before its to late. Now the sci-fi channel usually has a 2 million or less budget for thier films and usualy do okey with the budget but really bad in total. this is one of the few films that proves th... Read more

Adventurers hire an expert cave explorer as guide, and they go down deep into the mine shafts in Switzerland that have been deserted for 50 years. Actually they are not just adventurers; they are criminals looking for something very precious, but, well, that's not important. Deep in the cave the expedition team encounters something big, something fearful and creepy. Yes, they're giant beetles attacking and eating humans! This is a typical, silly plot that can be fun with skillful storytelling or clever direction, but unfortunately "Caved In" has neither of them. The story goes on in a matter-of-fact way; it's no fun to see the actors acting badly fighting against a bunch of big bugs badly CG-created. And that `bad' is not kind of `campy' type of badness, nor `tongue-in-cheek' kind of the intentional one. It's plain bad. Designs are no better. The cave never looks real. It is too clean and the rocks and stones, I believe, are put there by someone in the set. For the record, Chris... Read more

Well, this was not a very good movie, but it had some redeeming qualities. Mom with a pump action shot gun was nothing less than a super hero. I mean she was awesome and when she started blasting away, you almost had to feel sorry for the poor defenseless 6 foot long killer beetles. Then there was the kind of humorous part where every time mom blasted a beetle, its guts splattered all over the cute little blonde spoiled daughter. The little brother was an idiot. Dad was a little on the naive side too. The bad guys tried to act tough but were pretty incompetent. And how did all the lights and the elevator work in this abandoned mine fifty years later? It's a good thing they did because the explorers brought almost no equipment. Huh? Well the bottom line is, this movie is watchable, laughable and not the worst way to kill a couple hours if you like Sci Fi channel caliber movies. I do, so I was okay with it. Man, mom was good with that shotgun!!!