The Cave parents guide

The Cave Parent Guide

Overall C

What happens when nine people enter an unexplored, dark and scary subterranean cavern? If you don?t know, you haven't watched enough monster movies! The only real question is: Who will come out alive?

Release date August 25, 2005

Violence C-
Sexual Content B+
Profanity C
Substance Use B

Why is The Cave rated PG-13? The MPAA rated The Cave PG-13 for intense creature violence

Run Time: 97 minutes

Parent Movie Review

When nine people enter The Cave, you can bet nine won’t be coming out. Like Anaconda and The Core, this large cast of characters has plenty of disposable personalities that make good fodder for whatever lies beneath. The real challenge of the film then, is to guess who’s going to pack it in first.

In this script, Jack (Cole Hauser) and his brother Tyler (Eddie Cibrian) own a topnotch exploration company that boasts some of the best cavers and biggest egos in the world. They’ve been hired by Dr. Nicolai (Marcel Iures) and his research partner, Katherine (Lena Headey), to come to the mountains of Romania and help map a legendary cavern whose entrance has just been uncovered.

Outfitting the group with sonar guns and life support equipment, the team belays themselves down into the darkness in order to establish a base camp. Underground they find huge open rooms and an entire river system that runs for miles. Then, while investigating one of the tunnels, a diver is attacked by an unidentified creature. The ruckus causes a freak accident sealing the cave opening and leaving the adventurers trapped more than a mile below the surface.

With no other choice, the seven men and two women don their diving gear and head down river to find another exit. However, they soon discover they aren’t the only ones who have been in the subterranean lair when they happen upon an old pair of leather boots and the gnawed bone of a human leg. They also begin to hear the eerie chirping of some unknown grotto dweller.

The crisis increases when a clawed beast slashes Jack across the back and leaves him fighting an infection. When the other cavers question his ability to lead, Tyler and the team’s right-hand man, Buchanan (Morris Chestnut), try to keep the group safely on track through the endless labyrinth of rocky caverns that start to look surprisingly similar after a while.

Profanities seem to increase proportionate to the stress levels as the band tries one offshoot after another in an attempt to find a way out. Tensions among the hikers grow once the creatures systematically begin to attack them, gruesomely pinning one man to the ceiling by impaling him on stalactites.

With little character development, the plot relies almost solely on watery assaults and violent skirmishes with the winged beasts to move the storyline along. It also openly sets itself up for an aboveground sequel. But, with any luck, producers won’t cave in to that blatant suggestion.

Starring Cole Hauser, Morris Chestnut, Piper Perabo. Running time: 97 minutes. Theatrical release August 25, 2005. Updated

The Cave Parents' Guide

The divers usually work in teams to help ensure their safety. What other measures do they use to protect themselves? Why do they recite the statistic, “1 in 14”?

What does the team use to help them with their mapping efforts? How do these scientific advancements improve mankind’s ability to make new discoveries? What other fields of research use sonar imaging?

Home Video

The most recent home video release of The Cave movie is January 1, 2006. Here are some details…

DVD Release Date: 3 January 2005
Come explore The Cave, if you dare, by listening to the filmmakers’ or writer’s commentaries, and by watching the bonus featurettes, Designing Evolution: Tatopolous Studios and Into the Cave. Available in either wide or full screen versions, the DVD offers Dolby Digital 5.1 audio tracks in both English and French, with subtitles in English and French.

Related home video titles:

Another group of adventurers find themselves deep below the surface in the 1959 classic film Journey to the Center of the Earth. A pair of treasure hunters uncover more than gold in Sahara. Actor Morris Chestnut deals with fires in the movie Ladder 49.