Sanctum (2011)

If there is one thing I hate in survival movies it is when characters say they are 'okay' when it's so obvious that they are not. Usually this happens to a minor (but liked) character who needs to be picked off the herd for story purposes.

Everything about 'Sanctum' feels like it's manipulated to advance the story. The head caver, Frank (Richard Roxburgh), is an asshole who constantly talks in angry rants about the cave like it is a living creature who will kill you if you mess up. He doesn't inspire hope or teach survival. He just yells at everyone and makes them afraid. He is the last guy you want leading you out of a trapped cave. Instead of wanting him to get free, I couldn't care less if he dies. Not good in this kind of movie.


Frank is trapped with his estranged son (Rhys Wakefield), his billionaire benefactor (Ioan Gruffudd - who would have ever thought that I would see TWO of his movies in one day) and the billionaires girlfriend (Alice Parkinson). Three of them are the inexperienced people among the trapped who have to learn the ways of the cave as they try to escape it when the cave system they are exploring, floods.

The shots of inside the cave are spectacular. There are many tense moments as the group negotiate their way through the various types of conditions one would expect to find in a flooded cave system.


The music, however is very off-putting. Tiny successes are viewed as great and glorious events - each one followed by something terrible. I predicted what was going to happen each step of the way.

It just wasn't fun. Maybe it needed underground mutants like 'The Descent' to make it interesting. I found I was just waiting for it to end. Characters start with one set of traits and motivations and suddenly switch who they have been all their lives. I felt manipulated to care about characters. That tactic by the filmmakers failed.


I think I especially disliked this film because part of the script includes Samuel Taylor Coleridge's famous poem - 'Kubla Khan' which is my favorite and I can quote from memory. It has no meaning other than just another plot device and an obvious one too. It's the poem that Frank's dead wife liked and it's one way that father and son 'reconnect' on their adventure. Ho Hum.

I think I would have felt cheated seeing this in the theatres. The trailer promises so much more than we actually got. For such a spectacular setting, I really hoped to get more from the story. It ends up teaching only two lessons. First of all - don't go into the cave. Secondly - what happens in the cave, stays in the cave.

5/10