Another case of cinematic rolling pin action where a half hour concept is spread, or more accurately flattened, into an hour and half long feature. Despite a promising premise, the story quickly degrades into about an hour of shrill screaming by our featured anti-heroine, Victoria, as she freaks out under Paris. Allegedly no one can hear you scream in the catacombs, however, the acoustics are no match for Vickie's stridency. She sounds as if she's plugged into a Marshall set on eleven with the crappy rave soundtrack jacked into channel two as accompaniment. In fairness to star Shannyn Sossamon, she throws her skinny self around with some fat charismatic scene chewing, attempting to lend some heft to the lightweight screenplay, which when having the " hysterical girl runs screaming in catacombs " parts removed, will likely only leave about seven pages of actual dialog. Maybe the heavy yelling is suggestive filler for the anticipated silence of the audience. Nonetheless, Sossamon's performance, even in the face of limited material, ups the rating several notches and I thought Pink did a decent job in her cross over work. The rest of the cast is presented as anonymous and annoying French folks who have nothing better to do than spend their excessive free time playing pranks thus proving that they're just bored socialists who get all their stuff for free. The suspense story is undermined by the spoiler announcement which is broadcast in the opening scene in order that you don't suffer from over excitement. The seemingly implausible plot twists at the conclusion hardly seem worth the wait in this catacomb catatonia.
Review of Catacombs
