Review of Catacombs (2007) by Mark C — 09 Dec 2007

An anxious young American woman (Sossamyn) travels to Paris where her sister (Pink) takes her to an underground rave in the bone filled catacombs.

As times change, so do genre conventions. Where 80's horror was generally based on the family and judeo-christian ethics (Gotta love Reagan), and the 90's focused a lot of horror on the self-referential cognitive horror (thank god for rebellion), the 00's have brought us borderline snuff films. Not a surprise since we're living in very shallow "celebrity sex tape/try not to eat more than 300 calories today" times. The desire to kick things up is a symbol of our inhumanity. Well, this little gem is following in that tradition. The opening title sequence features a bunch of kids raving, and a bevvy of bouncing boobies. In fact, there are many random boobies bouncing around in this movie. There really aren't any "characters", and there really isn't any "acting" here (although Sossamyn does her best at yelling and falling down a lot). There also isn't much of a plot, or really a semblance of anything aside from gratuity, self indulgence and a general lack of talent all around. By the time I got to the absynthe drinking, and the cannibal with the goat mask (that's right, a goat mask) I was laughing for all of the wrong reasons. An ineptly written script, and flashy direct-to-video direction round out the rest of the dodginess of this film.

This one is bad. Another entry into the torture porn genre where there is supposed to be some sort of catharsis in human cruelty. I never thought I would miss Kevin Williamson's smug screenplays. At least they rely on something aside from gratuity.