Catacombs (2007)

I decided to revisit Catacombs after a good ten years simply because I remembered it being OK and it was going really cheap in the discount DVD shop. It is nowhere near as good as I remembered, probably owing to the fact that I recalled the beginning and the end, and none of the boring shit in between. And boy, is there a LOT of boring shit in between! And even the beginning and end have been bastardised by my damned sense of logic. Let's dive into what could have been a good movie, but isn't: Catacombs.

If you'd ever wondered what a cave full of assholes
looked like...

Victoria (Shannon Sossomon) narrates that she got a mysterious postcard from her sister Caroline (Alecia Moore, AKA Pink) to go and stay with her in Paris, as it would be good for her. The brief intro shows us that Victoria takes a surprisingly wide assortment of medicines, explaining to a couple of obnoxious airport customs officers that she "feels nervous sometimes". The movie makes a point of painting every French person (and that is basically everyone except Victoria and her sis) as a menacing entity who not only hates Americans but is in the very process of concocting a diabolical way to harm whichever American is standing before them. Caroline is the typical carefree punk type that an indie horror would only ever hire Pink to play, but in this sense, means that she is actually a total prick who incessantly drops foreshadowing words of threat that sound the furthest thing from natural dialogue.

The sister's housemates are male French assholes who take joy in shitting people up for no good reason - more foreshadowing. They take Victoria to a party they assure will "change her life", that is hosted in one of the many corners of the Paris catacombs, letting us know highly expositionally - but not in the least bit convincingly - that the Police never catch them because the catacombs are vast and they party at a different spot every time. When we see the vastness of this rave and the sheer noise that it creates, it prompts us to question many of the finer logistical details of this underground party scene: Who the fuck could NOT hear that noise? How can the catacombs safely stand the vibrations and capacity of so much noise, equipment and people? How the fuck do they manage to get full DJ decks, rigging, fully-stocked neon bars, lights and bottomless alcohol, to their venue at all, let alone without attracting any attention? Is the winding line outside the door of what is obviously not a club or any other official establishment not evidence enough for the authorities of where this huge gang of hoodlums may be hosting their latest event? 

OK, Pink's naked shoulders.
Maybe one reason to endure this shit.

Victoria is lured away from the main party by Caroline and her group of Parisian friends, including main party host Jean-Michel (I mean, it was gonna be either that or Pierre, right?!), who take her to a cavern in the catacombs where they skinny dip in a lagoon, but she refuses to join them, and tries to skulk off back to the party. But in between her protests, Jean-Michel relays to her the legend of the devil man living in the catacombs, who was born of satanic ritual and brought up on a diet of raw meat until he was strong enough to be the adult Devil Incarnate. Now he supposedly lurks in the tunnels of the catacombs, so, hey - there's a nice thought for you to take back into those gloomy passageways with ya, Vic!

Caroline catches up with her but they get lost and are soon set about by the Devil man, who apparently kills Caroline, and chases Victoria off. This is where the action ends for a good hour or so. In her copious wanderings in darkness, the only thing that punctuates it much is the appearance of another French dude, Henri, who has a map and a theory as to how to escape. He is soon dispatched though, and Victoria's constant addressing of him as "Henry" - even after he pointedly helped her pronounce his name properly - is surely to blame for half his eventual disdain for her. Anyhow, this bullshit rambles on for way too much longer, and eventually the twist hits. Caroline is not dead, and all of this horror that couldn't possibly have been logically premeditated, was just a "prank" to get Victoria over her mental illness. LOL, they really had her going there!

But Caroline seems outraged that such an elaborate prank could send her mentally fragile sister over the edge and see her inadvertently kill someone in self defense. I mean, Christ, Victoria, lighten up! Just because some masked menace has hunted you down through an underground maze for hours and almost killed you several times, doesn't mean you have to go pick-axe him in the face! By this point, Vic has well and truly had enough of her sister's shit, and kills them all. Then she somehow gets back to the surface (this major point that the entire movie has hinged upon is totally glossed over in the end) and nonchalantly gets in a cab covered in blood, asking to go to the airport. End of movie.

I find myself never saying this, and I mean ever. I mean, people have always told me I should be a teacher because of how I can always find a compliment for everything, but I wasted 90 minutes of my precious life on Catacombs, and I'm kind of pissed off with how little I got in return. I feel like 90 minutes of sitting in gridlock traffic on the motorway may have been a more productive use of my time. But hey, I guess in this case I can churn out a few hundred words on its poor quality.

Guaranteed, she will get to the airport, no questions asked

Shame is, the first act of the movie is well done - very atmospheric and great use of sound editing and cinematography. But then the entire thing comes crashing down in every aspect, and it bobs by, embodying mediocrity. I feel that Catacombs should have been a short film. Take the first twenty minutes, and the final five, glue the ends together, and send it out on the film festival circuits. That could have worked. But a feature film this is not, and as a horror fan, I was left pissed off, and too deprived to call it a night. I had to top it off with something of quality before I could sleep soundly - which I didn't anyhow, by the way. This movie was so disappointing it literally haunted my dreams. Happy viewing.