Living Dark: The Story of Ted the Caver – 2013

Living Dark: The Story of Ted the Caver is a long title. It’s too long to repeat really. Therefore, I will refer to it simply as Living Dark from now on. Apparently, Ted the Carver is some kind of urban legend that I never heard about. When I read about it briefly I find that it originates from the early 2000s and is a text about someone exploring a cave. The further into it he wanders the more disturbing his story gets. The thing about it was that it was taken for a real story at the time of its creation. Or at least when it was first published. Living Dark is loosely based on that story. Exactly how loosely is hard to say since I’ve not read the original story.

At the very beginning, there are these two brothers. It’s obvious that they have some sort of unfinished business with each other. But they have come together because of their father’s recent demise and burial. At first, I thought it was very badly acted and I didn’t care for the style at all. In fact, I was almost about to turn it off. But then I decided I would like to see how bad it could get. Maybe it was so bad that it was entertaining. But, it never got to that point at all. No, there’s no flashy budget to speak of. But there’s a genuine that captured med pretty fast. I found myself being more and more interested in what was going to happen, especially after they discovered a hole in the ground by accident.

Claustrophobia

This becomes central and it doesn’t take long before the descent into the whole to explore further. Of course, they are both experience cavers, although one of the brothers suffers from claustrophobia. It’s kind of an odd combination, claustrophobic and exploring caves, don’t you think? This will later become an important factor in the story. Anyway, they descend into the hole in the ground and discover that there are already a lot of tools left behind down there by someone else, possibly their father. There are some lights set up in the ceiling of the cave and even an old generator to give power to the lighting.

So far, so good. A bit further in they discover a small hole in the wall. About as big as would could fit a fist in it. They become fascinated by the whole and it takes up a big portion of the character development when they try to largen it. After all, what’s in and beyond that wall is something unknown. It’s a virgin cave. No one has ever been there before. It’s hard to say if it takes weeks or days for them to widen the hole in the wall, but It’s not an easy task, to say the least. But at least they have a hole big enough to crawl through. Or almost crawl though because it’s very tight, almost impossible to get through.

Desperate Risks

It’s very suspensive when we see their attempt to get through. Will they get stuck? injure themselves? Or never be able to get back out again. For me, not being experienced in climbing, crawling, or cave exploration they seem pretty ignorant to me. Desperate and taking risks that I don’t think a real cave explorer would ever take. But what do I know, maybe there are people willing to live that close to the edge. As a viewer it kind of makes my stomach cramp. All of my being shouts “Don’t do it, you moron!”

There’s absolutely something on the other side. Something that drives them to the very edge of sanity. And not just them since they team up with others who also seem to lose their minds. But nevertheless, they still keep going back, repeating their ignorant behavior time and time again. There’s something there and they need to find it even if it kills them. That could have been the show thing. We all know that movies within caves that contain something unknown will be bad in the end. The most famous example ought to be Neil Marchall’s The Descent. There’s something in the depths killing them off one by one. There’s genuine terror and so on.

This is true for Living Dark as well even if it seems to have a shoestring budget in comparison. But there is also some kind of morals here. It’s not just genuine terror. The two brothers, who to begin with had some beef with each other grow closer and that they really love each other becomes more and more clear. Their inner secret is eventually shared and what might have been a facade, to begin with, crumples down as they try to help each other as much as humanly possible.

Bottom Line

Living dark turned out to be not so bad that it’s good after all. It became a really effective movie and I liked the way the scenes were filmed. The acting got quite a bit better than I found it to be in the opening scenes. There are some strange things though. Some things that shouldn’t even be possible. I’m not talking about supernatural events, because there are those things in there too. But things that shouldn’t be possible according to the laws of physics. Like if a normal-sized man cannot fit into a hole and needs to use a lot of effort to get through, even help from others to push and pull him. How can a larger person get through quite easily?

I guess I should focus on such things and be glad that it was a great engaging and thrilling atmosphere in the cave scenes. And I should be content with that the horror seamlessly got stronger for each scene in the caves. I liked this much more than I thought I should when I started watching it!