Reviewed by

Christopher Armstead

I’m not one for pop music so though I’ve heard of Songstress Alecia Moore, much better known by her marquee name of Pink, I wouldn’t recognize a song of hers even if she camped out under my bedroom window and serenaded me with it. But thanks to this little run and hide horror movie ‘Catacombs’, if Alecia were under my bedroom serenading me with of her songs, though I would be clueless of the songs origins I would be curious as to why this young woman with a body that could literally stop traffic is under my window howling at me. Come on in out of the cold baby and get a cup of hot chocolate. She also plays the WORST SISTER OF ALL TIME in this movie too. I’m talking ‘Whatever Happened to Baby Jane’ bad.

Victoria (Shannon Sossymon) is a nervous sickly girl who upon the urgings of what I guess is her big sister Carolyn (Pink), a sister we’ve already established as the WORST SISTER OF ALL TIME, takes a visit to spend some quality time with her in Paris France and unwind a bit. Victoria is shy, Carolyn is brash. Victoria is skittish, Carolyn is fearless. Victoria sits with her legs crossed, Carolyn sits with hers wide open. Though Paris is known as The City of Lights, it is also, according to this film, a city that sits upon lime lined catacomb caves filled to the brim with millions of dead bodies since apparently they ran out of places to stick their dead back in the day. So if you’re a wacky French young adult and want to throw a rave party, what better place to throw this party than deep in those catacombs amidst the dead and decaying. Have these nutjobs ever heard of a ‘house party’?

Victoria has a headache and just wants to stay home as flying seventeen hours across the Atlantic has taken a bit out of her, but Carolyn isn’t hearing any of it. She drags her sister out to the catacombs where she meets her siblings wacky friends who like to get naked and skinny dip in what I’m certain is a death infested catacomb pool and tells

those whacked out stories that often get told in these types of movies. I can’t rightfully remember but it has something to do with some inbred creature who lives in the catacombs, feeds on humans and wears like a helmet made of chickens or something. After reading that, I’m pretty sure that’s not it, but rest assured that whatever whacked out story they told, the dude they talked about is about to make an appearance. Next thing you know Victoria starts freaking out and disappears into the catacombs, though she was warned not to do this, and sure enough the killer with the helmet made of chickens goes through the process of killing all of her new friends and stalking Victoria through the endless maze of the catacombs. Armed with only a bum flashlight and considering she was on the very edge of sanity even before she went to this stupid ass party, can Victoria survive and make it out the catacombs in one piece?

I tell you what, if this singing thing ever gets boring for Alecia she needs to see if her agent can get her more acting gigs because she was certainly the highlight of this movie. ‘Catacombs’ is pretty standard ‘I’m gonna get you’ horror fare as we have our the always attractive Sossamon running around in the dark with the flashlight that NEVER has a decent set of Duracell’s and screaming her head off. And that was pretty much it for the whole movie to be quite honest with you. After a while watching Sossamon run and scream and hide and run and scream and hide became quite tiresome, but you can’t have a 40 minute movie so they had to stretch it out some kind of way in the absence of any real story or scintillating dialog. The atmosphere was nice though with the caves certainly serving as a nice backdrop for which bad things can happen, and though she wasn’t required to do much except run and scream and hide, Sossamon ran, scream and hid well enough. But then it ended.

In what is certainly one of the worst ‘twist’ style endings I’ve had displeasure to witness, ‘Catacombs’ had to go there. Truly, in my opinion at least, this one of the most worthless movies ever, and it’s all due to the way it ended. If a movie is teetering on the edge of whether one likes it or not, then the ending is what’s going tilt you from one side or the other, and the ending for this movie booted me into the ‘damn this sucked’ side of the ledger. I’ll give you the example of the movie ‘Angel Heart’ which was virtual torture for me to watch in the theater when it came out back in the day, but the ending for that movie, the last two minutes, practically saved all that I saw before. Almost. This was just the opposite. Total garbage ending.

Of course this is just my opinion and another viewer may find the conclusion satisfying and full of resolution. I can’t imagine who that guy would be that would feel that way, but it’s possible. Ultimately a disappointment of a promising concept, ‘Catacombs’ is a virtual waste of time. That is where it not for Pinks rack.

Real Time Web
        Analytics