Yeah so much energy and motivation could be of invaluable use on a cave project. Here is a list of cavers and grottos you could contact to see if they have anything you might be able to help on: [email protected] Just put "want to help on caving projects" in the heading folowed by "have lots of free time and interest. Please contact me at _________________________________" in the body.
Good luck, wes~ List-Post: [email protected] Date: Wed, 10 Jun 2009 11:18:03 -0500 From: [email protected] To: [email protected] CC: [email protected] Subject: Re: [Texascavers] DVD Review - The Cavern ( part 1 of review ) Nooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!!! David, I just skimmed your review, but you have to label it "SPOILER ALERT" before you write a review that gives away the plot!!! Texas cavers need to experience this firsthand! I was introduced to this piece of cinematic trash by Ronnie Harrison, a TX/KY caver in the Houston Grotto. He came over and we watched this movie @ my place, just so he could watch the expression on my face during the last 15 minutes. This movie is SICK. A very disturbed individual wrote this script. It's vile. That being said, I'm definitely going to buy a copy. I want to watch the last 15 minutes on repeat a few times, just to be sure that I saw what I think I saw. Also, I'd like to share this movie with friends & fellow cavers, preferably drunk ones. (you need to be, to watch this in it's entirety.) I want them to marvel, as I did, about who in the heck thought it a valuable use of their time to produce this crap. David, I also love how you took time out of your busy schedule, not just to watch this thing, but to write a detailed review of it and post it on cavetex, and find links and web reviews for this trainwreck. That's dedication. Now if only we could get you as fired up about coming down in the cave with us.... :) Mallory On Wed, Jun 10, 2009 at 11:04 AM, David <[email protected]> wrote: You all remember the movies, "The Cave" and "The Descent," but do you remember the one called, "The Cavern" ? Why did Hollywood make 3 very crappy movies about caving within a year of each other. ( If they had combined their financial resources and made one movie, it would have probably been watchable. ) http://cover6.cduniverse.com/MuzeVideoArt/Large/68/305968.jpg http://www.imdb.com/media/rm745905408/tt0451262 I found the DVD of "The Cavern" at Half-Price Books. I don't remember ever hearing about this movie, but it must have been that it was rumored to be so bad, that I did not go see it. The directors of this movie seemed to try harder to make it more about caving than the other two. However, the audience was never given an opportunity to connect with the cavers. The cavers seem like a crew assembled for a Survivor TV show. I didn't believe any caver on the group deserved to be on this so-called important expedition, especially the trip leader. The cave was supposedly in a remote area of Kazakhkstan, however, there was no beautiful cinematography to make the audience appreciate the landscape. The cave entrance and passage were not impressive at all. The directors tried to make the audience feel sorry for the team as they had lost a colleague on a previous trip to Peru. She had washed away in a sump and was never seen again. I did not like the way they played this part into the story. There was one sex scene in the cave entrance, but it was meant to lead to the horror plot and not to be erotic. This scene could have been done completely different like a love scene in "Love in the Time of Cholera," and it could have played out very well. Instead the horror part was cheezy and stupid. The directors lost an opportunity for the audience to bond with these 2 cavers. The cavers tried to appear well organized. But any caver watching it would see a bunch of newbie thrillseekers. They immediately find a hole in the floor of the cave passage that is a pit leading to a lower level. They never see on the cave floor any sign of the cave being used by animals or some creature, like footprints, or bones. They all bop the pit in a matter of seconds, but it is only about 30 meters deep. I think the directors really lost credibility by this time of the movie. I don't know what kind of rappelling device the trip leader used. It was larger than a Petzl Stop and was at the face level of him. He squeezed it to make it descend like a Petzl. ( Some Hollywood gadget ? ) Everybody else appeared to use a rock-climbers tiny Figure-8. ( I think most caver's would agree that this type of Figure-8 is not proper vertical equipment for caving. ) Most of them were using cheap internal frame backpacks on their backs to haul their gear, and most of these packs appeared to be half-empty. They all had 2 lights on their helmet. But in an effort to look cool, they used both lights at the same time, even while their batteries were nearly depleted and they were hopelessly trapped in a cave with a beast. Immediately their cable-operated telephones did not work. Immediately one of their buddies was not in the room at the bottom of the pit. He seemed to vanish from thin air. They followed a large blood trail to him. His intestines were hanging out and he was gasping for air. The surface crewman was dissected by the creature and thrown with the rope into the pit. The rest of the movie was like the Blair Witch Project. They eventually shot the creature which they thought appeared to be a half-bear/half wolf, but we didn't see the creature then. It survived several gun shots in the cave only to kill the shooter. ( How many cave trips carry a semi-automatic pistol into the cave ? ) They said in Kazakhstan, it was necessary, so I will buy that. So we are down to 3 cavers trapped in what appears to be a small cave with only a few passages barely big enough to stoop walk. ( But how does the creature get down there if there is no passage, and how does such a large creature move so quietly in the cave and in the dark ). Then 2 girls are left alone to fend for themselves with almost no light. They find a crawlway leading to sunlight. The audience thinks these 2 girls are going to live. This is when the movie goes from bad to just plain ignorant, and trashy. The girls get caught, but for some reason unknown to the audience, they faint and wake up in a room with a campfire and a door sealed by a large rock. They are naked, but covered in a bear rug. They have no physical signs of being kidnapped by a beast. There is meat roasting on a skewer above the fire, and the girls suddenly for no reason become savagely hungry and start eating the meat like they have not eaten in weeks. They soon realize it was their trip leader friend, and begin to vomit in a way that most of the audience wants to vomit. They explore the room, and realize that some human occupies it and that he was a child survivor of some sort of Russian plane crash back in the 80's. The creature returns. He appears to be some sort of cave-man wearing a cave-bear skull for a mask. He grunts and takes of his mask. He studies the girls. He decides to spear one of them to a bloody death. And then he apparently begins to rape the other one, as the movie ends in her bloody covered face screaming. http://www.imdb.com/media/rm2690292992/tt0451262 The worst movie ending I have ever seen. Nothing about the creature was believable. The movie audience will not learn anything positive about caving. They will feel cavers are stupid for entering caves. They will feel cavers are boring people with no lives. Maybe the morale to the story was to tell someone where you are going caving and to have a surface support group on your expedition. But they still would have all been eaten by the caveman. Here is a web-review that seems to agree with me that the movie sucked. http://www.horror.com/php/article-1309-1.html David Locklear caver in Fort Bend County Ref: Here is a photo of the trip leader, shortly before he was roasted on the skewer. http://www.imdb.com/media/rm2742394112/tt0451262 http://www.netflix.com/Movie/The_Cavern/70051025 https://www.hotmoviesale.com/store/productView.aspx?idProduct=22874&ec=1&ProdId=29 --------------------------------------------------------------------- Visit our website: http://texascavers.com To unsubscribe, e-mail: [email protected] For additional commands, e-mail: [email protected] _________________________________________________________________ Windows Live™: Keep your life in sync. http://windowslive.com/explore?ocid=TXT_TAGLM_WL_BR_life_in_synch_062009
