this image has nothing to do with the movie

SciFi Channel movies have never been very good. There are some real great stinkers in the bunch, but they've always had a sense of old school camp to them. Then came Alien Express, not featured here as a Bad Movie Review because I wouldn't want to offend Uncle Lou Diamond Phillips. It was lame, but it was pushed into awful with the CGI special effects. They were over-used, over-done, and under-effective. No one told the SciFi Channel.

Caved In: Prehistoric Terror brings to mind how annoying these subtitles are getting. And the tagline-- geeze-- "What's worse than being stuck in a cave with prehistoric man-eating bugs? Nothing." It's almost as rich as Boa vs. Python's "What's worse than a 50-foot, blah-hundred pound, killer snake? Two."

You know what the movie is about already-- a cave with man-eating bugs. But how? Why? Who? That's why it must be put into film. I hope years from now some high school kids find the SciFi catalog and get some use out of it-- especially if they need a laugh while they're doing gateway drugs and things like that... damn high-schoolers.

The star of our show is Christopher Atkins, whose past credits include an episode of The Red Shoe Diaries and a season on Dallas. Here he's a father and a spelunker. Yes, that is a stupid work for a cave explorer. We can thank the smelly French for that, according to the dictionary. Atkins is the best spelunker there could have been-- but he up and decided to have a family. Now he's the best, but he's never really had much chance to show it. He's hired to work a cave with some Russians, I think. The Russians always turn up on SciFi-- it's weird.

The family is taken to a remote cabin, close to where the cave that will be spelunked is. Oh, I'm using the hell out of that word. The group consists of two rich people, male and female, and four bad guys. They're all looking to pillage some emeralds, or rubies, maybe gems-- something valuable. They find out early that there are bugs the size of rabbits running through the cave, but they figure they're the adult versions of the bugs, so as scared as they are, they figure that's the end of that.

We all know this is far from true. Our spelunkers reach a massive opening in the cave. Oh-- the cave is guarded by these big bugs. I'm putting the odds on 4:1 we don't get a real explanation of their origin. Also, the real star of our movie is Colm Meaney. Irish born tough-guy, you may remember him from Layer Cake, or probably Chief Miles on Star Trek: Deep Space 9. And for you bad movie regulars... drumroll... Angela Featherstone (Soul Survivors) as the mother. I sold that back to Blockbuster for $4. Suckers.

To get more into the characters, we have a curious son/brother and a total bitch of a daughter/sister. The nature-loving family is off-set by this girl who wants to be rich and pampered. She's got a big mouth and raging hormones. She's all over some young French murderer posing as a tea-drinking hotel host. We lost our first spelunker-- he was taken out by the lead bad guy, Bald Man with Goatee. He pushed him off a ledge and then some bugs ate him. As the family hunts for the son, who's being all curious, exploring the cave behind his father's spelunking gang, the mom finds Old Dead Guy. I didn't mention him before. They killed him to take the treasure map and they had him sign over the land with the cave.

Bald Man with Goatee will be a bigger character, as the head bad guy. His name's Marcel, played by David Palffy. I wouldn't mind having this guy's career. He was a Mass Grave Soldier in Full Metal Jacket, and he only went up from there: House of the Dead, Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever, and Bloodsuckers (with the brothers DeLuise). Marcel tells the French boy to tie up the ladies at the cabin, as some insurance, to make sure Christopher Atkins stays in line. IMDB says the budget for this movie was $150 million. That's gotta be wrong, right? We lost another spelunker to a bug. It cuts off his arm and blood squirts like a stomped ketchup bottle. The bugs are identified as beetles. They spelunkers partake in a rousing game of Space Invaders as they shoot bugs and advance through the cave.

Did I mention the spelunkers have lasers? That's what they shoot the bugs with. Laughable! After they blast the crap out of a bug, the whole place starts to cave in. Which means the surface is broken, which means that the bugs are up and on the loose above ground now. YES! Stalking, fear, "suspense," and mutiny. Marcel pulls a gun on lead spelunker, Atkins, but the rest of the gang turns on Marcel. Marcel shoots the rich guy! He was our star! Bad choice. We have 45 minutes to go without him. Mom and daughter prepare to fight off some bugs from the cabin, but French boy comes back and knocks them out, "American girls give me such a headache."

Spelunkers move on, beetles kill Frenchie back at the cabin, and that annoying daughter just screams and screams and screams and screams. I hate those characters. No one seems to wonder how many beetles there are. I would. I would ask that a lot actually. "OH MY GOD! How many are there?! Why won't they DIE?!"

So listen, Alisha called and she's going to Denny's. I hate Denny's. It's so nasty. The Wilkes-Barre Denny's is sticky all over, and the food leaves me ill every time. But, since it is Marssa's birthday, I feel obligated. What I'm trying to say is that this movie review won't be finished if she calls again. I'd keep talking about the movie, but there are no developments. They shoot bugs, more bugs come after them. With no idea of how many bugs there are, and no ultimate far-out scientific engineering, there seems to be no way to kill them! How will our spelunkers prevail?!

Well, now is the morning after. I caught the encore when I got back from Denny's at 2:30 AM. The bad guys got killed by bugs, and the remaining people were rich lady, son, dad, mom, and daughter. They all pulled through, except rich lady. But dad escaped with some emeralds, so they're rich now-- just like that terrible screaming daughter always wanted. And the bugs? How did they kill them? Here's a good one. The people attacked the queen, so the queen screams out, and the bugs from the surface all go down to save the queen, like the British. Spelunkers blow up the bugs and they all die. The end.

Spelunkers.