2007's Catacombs is notable as a FEARnet original film, as well as being set in the infamous French catacombs. If you don't know what that is, go google it. You should. They're quite interesting, and much written about, despite this film's apparent belief that the catacombs are "Paris' dirty little secret." The film is also notable for featuring one time pop music starlet P!nk, real name Alecia Moore. She does about as well as you'd expect, but I'll get to that later. In a film set in one of the world's most beautiful cities, in the world's largest mass grave, what we must first evaluate is the cinematography and atmosphere.

It sucks.

That's not to say Paris or the catacombs aren't photogenic, just that this director chose to phone it in completely, when he could have just set up long still camera shots and had all of his cinematography for him. Instead, there were frantic quick moving shots, lots of blur, cheap fog effects, and awful lighting. The film's lighting is terrible, because this film takes place in an area that is often pitch black. Despite this, there was seemingly constant ambient lighting. It was very light ambient lighting, but any ambient lighting at all in a tunnel over 100 feet underground is suspect. This film represents a complete missed opportunity to do some creative work with sheer dark, very limited light, stark outside lighting for the external scenes, just constant missed opportunities.

Which leads me to the acting, which has one massive one in the role of Victoria, portrayed by Shannyn Sossamon, a favorite actress of mine. She does well, for the role she is given. The writing for her is stale and boring, but she sells it as well as she can, and does fairly well with it. Her sister, played by P!nk, does not. Granted the character is made to be hated, but having P!nk play her makes her especially detestable. Additionally, none of her music is featured in this film, despite numerous opportunities to do so. This is a surprising vacancy, but a welcome one. The addition of her music would have made this attempted horror film especially terrifying.

The villain is some goat mask wearing guy. I have no more information. Something was said about some anti-Christ cult, but it was all rather vague. Plus, he has maybe 10 minutes of screen time, hardly enough time to make yourself a memorable character, or lodge yourself in the minds of viewers. Wasted opportunity. The costume may have been good, but the shaky camera kept me from being able to tell. The gore, which was thrown in almost as an afterthought to make the film scarier, looks fake. A pathetic attempt to scare someone from an organization known as FEARnet.

There are more problems, more wasted opportunities, more stupid decisions, but I'm not here to pick the film apart piece by piece. I could, don't get me wrong. This film had a myriad of issues, but I'm not going to waste my time on this forgettable picture. It's a standard slasher, with a cool setting, but nothing more. If you like Shannyn Sossamon, she gives a good performance, but If you're craving her, just watch Wristcutters: A Love Story. And if you decide to watch the film, don't give up. Watch the whole thing. This film's absurd, hilarious ending, elevates it from a pathetic two stars, to a slightly more respectable two and one half.

**.5 out of *****