Cuba Gooding Jr.:   Mack
Valerie Cruz:   Elissa Cardell
Taryn Manning :  Doc
Ron Pearlman :   Wesley
Ray Winstone:  Blakely
Henry Rollins:  Father Fulton
Bill Mosley :  Professor Duncan

Release Date: May 26th, 2009
Studio: Sony Films
Genre: Action / Adventure / Horror
Rated: R      1 hr 30 mins

CAST:

Special forces members investigate a cave/bunker in the desert only to meet babbling zombies and experience pointless flashbacks and clichéd hallucinations. One part Aliens, another part typical zombie film, the remaining parts pure malarkey, The Devil's Tomb should never be opened.

Mack (Cuba Gooding Jr.) and his team of armed and dangerous soldiers join CIA agent Elissa Cardell (Valerie Cruz, True Blood) in attempt to extract a screwy scientist from a bunker that has been damaged by an earthquake. Except there was no earthquake and the special forces team, which feature the rather sexy Doc (Taryn Manning, Hustle and Flow) and steamy Yoshi (Stephanie Jacobsen, Terminator: The Sarah Conner Chronicles), find a deserted lab. Upon further investigation the team finds Professor Duncan (Bill Moesly, Texas Chainsaw Massacre Part 2) all zombified and quoting the bible. He vomits out some tarry gunk, gets shot and then shuffles away. The team keeps up the search, finds a few more zombies, Duncan still roaming around and rambling bible passages and an alien-thing in a big ice cube. 

The Devil's Tomb makes little sense and offers few shocks. There's pointless nudity, really bad dialogue, plenty of bad acting, passable gore and Henry Rollins dressed up as a priest yelling at everyone. Aside from Rollins and Hammer (Frankie G, Saw II), the remainder of the cast is sleepwalking through their roles. There’s no passion, little believability and zero emotion even though it seems like there is supposed to be a lot of it. Which is very terrifying since director Jason Connery (yes, Sean's son) tries to inject a lot of emotional exposition and turn a search and destroy zombie/religious horror flick into a character driven action adventure piece. Something was lost between script and screen and from the looks of it, most of the actors never had a clue or just didn't care.

Painful and plenty bad, The Devil's Tomb is just no fun. Considering the caliber of actors and the pedigree of the director, it's quite confusing why this film is this bad. But then the plot is pretty goofy to begin with and trying to beef the film up with flashbacks, emotion and genre expectations just didn't help. In fact, the film might have been much better if it was just a numb zombie shoot 'em up with unlikeable characters that are expendable. Some aspects of the film come close but the talking zombies really zap the fun out of even that.

And to add insult to injury, there really is no Devil nor is there a tomb in the film. Talk about false advertising. Avoid this one at all costs as it is more advisable to catch a cold than this flick.

The Devil's Tomb

October 7, 2009

Reviewer: Rottenbucher

DIRECTOR:

Jason Connery

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