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aishinono
Reviews
Living Dark: The Story of Ted the Caver (2013)
This movie is painful to watch
First I would like to say, the director got it right several times. There were some scares and although they were jump scares which leave you feeling empty afterwards, the lead up to that jump scare was good, not too sudden, not too expected.
The problem comes in the plot.
1) Their father's tomb is in the middle of nowhere. That's cool. They encountered an old mine shaft while visited their father's tomb, that's cool too. What's not cool, is when they decided to open a hole that they themselves acknowledged to be 'someone trying very hard to keep it sealed'. There's even a chair looking at that hole, suggesting that someone's been watching the hole before. That's stupidity number 1.
2) The big brother was so adamant about entering the hole that they opened up, supposedly to find out why their father died. That's cool too, emotion and passion is good. What's not good is for them to still want to go in despite hearing some monstrous sound from the other side. Stupidity number 2.
3) So they roped in their friend to explore with them too. That's cool too. Except this guy came out completely spooked and couldn't say a word. The big brother even went to his home, tried to ask what he saw, but instead of calling it quits, the big brother went back in. Why? Just why? You want to see the horror yourself? You know there's gonna be horror, so why were you in there and then freak out when you confront such horror? Stupidity number 3, plus several stupidities in between bundled together.
4) So their brother went in, came back out completely spooked, while dragging behind him some of these creatures, so much so that they tried to follow them out of the hole in the ground. Okay, this is not a problem. The problem is, after all this, Charlie who felt ignored, decided to meet them on his birthday at Floyd's Tomb. Okay, I know Charlie's not right in the head, but under what mental condition would someone decide, "Hey, let's celebrate my birthday at the place your father died horribly!" Stupidity number 4.
5) So the brothers,seeing the message immediately chased after Charlie. Awesome, you can feel the tension and the desperation here. Again, awesome. What's not awesome is in the detail. Like how is it that the lean younger brother got stuck entering that hole when the fatter and definitely less athletic Charlie got through fine? I'm sure someone would argue that Charlie was dragged there by the shadow creatures, but no, his jacket was placed right by the hole, which means he took it off and entered the hole himself. Stupidity number 5.
I don't know if there's a stupidity number 6, but I stopped watching at this point. I feel I've done fairly well watching for almost 1 and a half hours. I don't normally give anything a negative review, but someone should be shot over this.