Living Dark: The Story of Ted the Caver (2013) Reviews

• Excellent for what it is

  schultze-324802018-07-25

  I had extremely low expectations for a movie based on a creepypasta, but I love the original Ted the Caver story so much I decided to give this a try, and I was *pleasantly* surprised. The movie really was pretty scary, in my opinion, though yes, some are jump scares, as almost all horror movies do. The actor who played Ted - Chris Cleveland - was a wonderful surprise. He strongly reminded me of Matthew McConnaghey, and I really felt his terror. In my opinion, his performance alone changed this from an average movie to one I really liked. Yes, there are some weak plot points (which is the only reason I didn't go for an 8), but I've seen few horror movies with a plot that doesn't require some suspension of disbelief. Give it a chance. I'm glad I did!

• Descent into the Cave

  KikyNez2018-05-05

  THERE WILL BE SPOILERS IN THE MID OF THE REVIEW (you've been warned) I found this movie accidentally. Usually movies based on Creepypastas don't call my attention, however, this one did and I certainly I don't know why. First of all, I don't like 'claustrophobic' movies, so I always skipped them, but Living Dark surprised me and got me hooked. The first act is awsome, and the second follows the construction: two estranged brothers reunite for their fathers burial, and accidentally find a virgin cave. So they bond again by joining together for caving on it. It was awesome, how they built the tension and desperation on some scenes. Director have done a good job. Darkness and spooky sounds have good part on keeping me very hooked and scared at the same time. I did love the leading actor and how he played 'Ted', and the actor playing 'Brad' made a good follow up, they had brotherly chemistry. The third act, however, lost all the build up, and lost some tension. The end kind of dissapointed me. SPOILERS HERE: I didn't like the explanation of what was living on the cave, was kind of a bad copy of "The Descent" and wasn't creep at all. It had no reason to be, I mean; seriously? An army of deformed beings just killing randomly in the cave and out the cave when is convenient? No, just no. All what was constructed at the two first part of the movie was losted on it. Altghough, Ted sacrifice for his brother was a high point. Brad did make a good choice by shutting down the place. SPOILERS OUT. The worst: it need more expanded explanation for the plot twist at the end, and this twist was not good. The best: acting was pretty good! good story, very creepy atmosphere, and tension had me all the way desperated to the next scene. Well... I recommend this one, it is actually very good. 8/10 Watch at your own risk ... We are all critics, but must see to give a critic.

• The story is told

  blumdeluxe2017-03-23

  That's pretty much all I can say about "Living Dark". The film starts out rather nicely with two brothers finding the entrance to a cave and a hidden section of the cave deeper inside. Their attempts to reach that section build the framework for the first part of the movie, that is, in my opinion, the strongest. Here the characters are established that are actually quite sympathetic in a way, even though some scenes might be a bit over the top. I still was in a positive state of mind when I learned that something sinister seemed to hide in this untouched part of the cave. What I hoped for was some kind of mystery, slowly revealed by the freshly established characters. Unfortunately, what happens is rather an army of mud and dirt soldiers, living exclusively in the dark and randomly killing people. This is where the producers lost me. To be fair I have to admit that I am not a huge fan of para-natural Horror. But even if I were one cannot but see that the idea of something evil hiding in the dark and killing people is not exactly brand new. For me this story is told. And the threehundredandsixteenth shot of people running from evil won't add much substance to it.

• read the book

  phenomynouss2019-02-17

  Somehow from an evening of drifting about various articles and stories online, I managed to come across Ted's caving site. I was almost immediately enthralled by it, and loved how it managed to be creepy without overtly alluding to any supernatural or horror fantasy elements until seemingly more than half-way in. Even leading up to then, it was not at all clear if this was going to be a case of a fictional story or a strange occurrence with a likely mundane explanation. The epilogue trail-off was rather overly dramatic to me, and sort of sealed the story off to me as being genuinely fictitious. I did some research and learned to my surprise the "Ted" is real, and he really did explore that cave, although the horror elements were added just for a fun story. somehow then this led to this film based on the story. I had no expectations right away, given less its low budget than its incredibly lame title and its plot synopsis with needless extraneous story elements like making the Ted and Brad characters brothers with some overly dramatic backstory and a dead father bringing them together to the cave and a needless mentally disabled brother who inexplicably manages to get down into the cave despite having no clear knowledge of climbing or caving or even having any equipment on him. the film is shot, and in some cases acted, in a very amateurish way that is rather off-putting, and is only saved by the fact that it delves straight into the cave discovery within the first few minutes. from there, despite having a needless backstory for the two protagonists, it sticks almost exactly to the original web story, complete with recreations of the web story's pictures. despite the amateurish style and acting, the film is shockingly not that bad, and despite blowing its proverbial load early with some teasing shock moments, the final sequence, taking place presumably after the last entry of the web story, features some amazing-looking creatures largely hidden away and showing up infrequently, looking great for a low budget film. The one brief shot the film indulges us with its face, it looks amazing. overall this is a film that doesn't need to exist, and tried to not come off as a straight-forward direct adaptation of the source material, to its own detriment. the source material is strong on its own, and this film did the best it could.

• This movie is painful to watch

  aishinono2017-06-20

  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.