The Devil's Tomb

The Devil’s Tomb

2009

Director- Jason Connery

Cast- Cuba Gooding Jr., Taryn Manning, Henry Rollins, Valerie Cruz, Bill Moseley, Ray Winstone, Ron Perlman, Zack Ward, Dania Ramirez, Franky G., Stephanie Jacobsen, Brandon Fobbs, Jason London

           

The first thing that will jump out at you about this film is the cast. Almost everyone has genre credits in sci-fi, fantasy or horror. Amongst these are veteran character actor Ray Winstone, Taryn Manning from Orange is the New Black,  horror legend Bill Mosely, alternative culture icon Henry Rollins, Academy Award winner Cuba Gooding Jr., Hellboy himself Ron Perlman, and even the evil Scut Farkus from The Christmas Story, Zack Ward (?!?).

            The awesome cast aside, the plot is a little derivative, pretty much elements of Event Horizon Predator, and Prince of Darkness mixed in with your usual horror conventions. A team of mercenaries are lured into an underground tomb in the desert under the guise of a rescue mission. They find carnage and survivors who seems to be either insane or possessed.

            As it happens, about 2000 years ago, a rebellious angel was cast out of Heaven and imprisoned in that tomb. In the time since, an ancient order has worked to keep the angel imprisoned and its power in check. But something has gone wrong and the evil power within is on the verge of escaping, so a member of that ancient order tricks the team of mercs to get them into the tomb in order to contain that evil.

            As I said before, it’s a great cast and there is some good gore occasionally. What the movie lacks is any sense of dread or surprise. Remember, if you are in a creepy underground bunker, and a hot naked woman shows up to tempt you, IT’S A TRAP! Jason Connery (Sean’s son), though a veteran actor, didn’t really have any experience directing horror.

            It’s hard to assess the success of straight to video movies but I don’t think this one was very successful. If it had come out a few years earlier it could have capitalized on Cuba Gooding Jr.’s 90s fame and if it had come out a few years later, it probably would have found some fans on streaming services like Netflix. As it is, I fear it has drifted into the relative obscurity of the five dollar bins.