User Reviews

Well this has been hiding under the surface, as it took a friend to mention about it for me pay notice. The copy I just watched happened to be there's too. 'What Waits Below' is a minor, but completely distinctive and enjoyable horror/adventure trek in some underground caverns. Neil Marshall's 2005 feature 'The Descent' might shoot to mind, but other than featuring albinos' (known as Lemurians') living the caves, the tone is much different. The adventure aspect easily beats out the horror elements that are looming. I found it to lose its way in the last 20 minutes, as the story shows up its lack of ideas and the script's thin base. Still after a slow beginning it keeps you watching and manages some effective shocks, interesting atmospherics and sprinkles of moody suspense with Denny Jaeger and Michel Rubini's edgily wounding score perfectly streamlining (if at times overshadowing) the presentation. Eerie locations and pastel set-designs within the cave system make it like you've entered another world and the make-up/costumes for the Lemurians' are quite standard. Director Don Sharp's tight and compact handling doesn't let its budget restraints entirely bog it down and the performances are mostly good. Robert Powell is an undervalued actor and makes light work of his performance by presenting an easy-going charm and class. Timothy Bottoms is efficient and the gorgeously fixating Lisa Blount gives a hardy turn. Modest low-budget horror/adventure item that goes on to promise more than it actually delivers.

I just finished watching this movie and I must admit I didn't have high hopes. To my pleasant surprise this turned out to be a quite good movie. It wasn't a great movie, but I am very glad I got to watch it! During a test of a low frequency transmitter two men and the transmitter disappear. A team is gathered to search the caves where the test took place. Caves that never before have been explored by man. But, what waits them below they could never imagine.

This story turns out quite original and I think that is maybe what makes the movie so good. The script is far from perfect, but it works. The acting is probably the best with the whole movie. It is generally good. The cinematography could, however, been better. I find it too boring. It's too straight. Though they did a pretty good job in creating the atmosphere and the mood. There were some pretty chilling sequences.

When it comes to effects what can you expect from a 1984 B-movie? Well, they did OK on most of it, except for the monster. It was actually pretty bad and in fact personally I think they should have cut the whole monster. They way I see it, it rather took then give anything to the movie.

I can recommend this movie because of it's story. There are few cliché there. As for the rest of this movie it is OK, but nothing out of the ordinary. However, well worth to watch.

Rupert 'Wolf' Wolfsen works for the US government, he is liaising with the US military in central America to help find a suitable cave where they wish to instigate a new top secret radio device for submarines?. They have trouble finding such a location until after a large landslide an entrance to just such a cave reveals itself. After setting up their equipment, they retire to base camp only to find that when they return the next morning, their irreplaceable transmitter has been taken and the guards dead. A search and rescue mission is authorised to go into the furthest reaches of the cave. Preposterous premise aside this was rather good fun, What Waits Below can only be described as a cross between Marshall's The Descent and Universals The Mole People, right down to the latter's albino civilisation who live there. Don Sharp just about retains an air of quality to proceedings, there may even be some pseudo political message in the ending.

I had to principal reasons to check out the relatively obscure 80's cave-horror movie. First of all because I read in several reviews that the film can be considered as an antecedent of Neil Marshall's acclaimed 2005 hit "The Descent", in which a bunch of extreme sport chicks encounter a strange breed of predators in a previously unexplored cave. The second reason is because this was the last meaningful film of Don Sharp. This underrated Australian-born director made a few very cool movies for Hammer studios, like "Kiss of the Vampire" and "Rasputin: The Mad Monk", as well as a few other sadly overlooked genre gems like "Dark Places" and "Psychomania" (about a gang of zombie bikers!). "What Waits Below" has a peculiar but potentially interesting premise, and dark ominous caves have always been effective settings for horror flicks. Whenever a group of teenagers, scientists or speleologists plummets down a cavern, there's always some type of monster or estranged civilization to knock them off. The problem here, however, is that takes an enormous long time before something happens and when the menace does eventually gets personified, you'll only feel underwhelmed and maybe even tempted to chuckle. Robert Powell, who starred in some bizarre horror films before like "The Survivor" and "Harlequin", plays a caving expert hired by the army to install a radio transmitter inside a Central American cave. I think it was to remain in contact with submarines, or something… I didn't quite understand that part. Anyway, not important, because the radio as well as the soldiers on guard mysteriously vanish during the first night and Powell leads an expedition deeper down into the cavern. Plentiful of dull conversations and false scares later, the group stumbles upon a whole community of albino dorks. The cave people seriously don't look the least bit scary. Earlier in the film, there' a confusing sequence with some sort of snake monster that peeps out of a hole in the stone wall and kills off one of the soldiers. Even though that creature is a lot more horrific – albeit also a bit cheesy and typically 80's – it would have been a better idea to revolve the film on. Don Sharp generates a bit of morbid atmosphere in the beginning of the descent, but it quickly becomes tedious and too enticing to fast forward. Still, good performances by Lisa Blount and Timothy Bottoms as the despicable army superior.

In terms of plot, mid '80s subterranean horror/adventure What Waits Below is a lot like Neil Marshall's The Descent (2005), both films revolving around a group of speleologists running into trouble when the cavern that they are exploring turns out to be home to a race of savage underground humanoids. In execution, however, the two films couldn't be more different...

Where The Descent is an expertly crafted white-knuckle thrill ride that delivers cool cannibalistic creatures guaranteed to scare the bejeezuz out of the viewer, What Waits Below is a plodding cheeze-fest that offers up slimy hand-puppet snake monsters and laughable albinos with silly haircuts.

Robert Powell, who is most renowned for his titular role in Jesus of Nazareth, makes for an extremely lacklustre hero (could this guy really find work as a mercenary? He looks more like a hairdresser to me) and Lisa Blount is bland as the token babe with a brain. The real stars of the film are the stunning underground locations, but as awe inspiring as the spectacular caverns and colourful rock formations undoubtedly are, they cannot possibly adequately compensate for the stodgy direction, weak acting, cruddy props and terrible dialogue ("In a cave, the only predictable element is the unpredictable").

3.5/10, generously rounded up to 4 for the surprisingly gory shot of a dead soldier with his face all messed up.

This British film set in the US is a fine example of what UK cinema used to be before they adopted gangsters & football hooligans as their only subject matter.

Starring Robert "The Detectives" Powell it revolves around a specialist sent into assist the military in setting up a transmitter deep within an unexplored cave complex. Once inside they discover a lost civilisation who aren't all too happy to see intruders.

Robert Powell is excellent and demonstrates again why he has always been a very underutilized actor. The presentation is brilliant as is the score.

Allegedly the movie was filmed a couple of miles down in a real cave complex, if so that is highly impressive though a fair few scenes look like they were more likely located in a studio.

Not sure why this deserved an R rated but regardless is a damn fine effort and an enjoyable piece of British cinema.

The Good:

Looks great

Robert Powell

Decent story

The Bad:

Falls apart a bit near the end

My review was written in June 1986 after watching the film on Lightning video cassette.

"What Waits Below" is a dull rendering of a lost race fantasy yarn. Filmed in 1983 under the title "Secrets of the Phantom Caverns", picture received only a test release in November 1984, subsequently appearing in video stores.

Robert Powell to;ines as Wolfson ("call me Wolf"), a soldier of fortune, first encountered being chased around Nicaragua by enemy troops. He's recruited by military pal George (A. D. Weary) to go to Belize and help U. S. Army Major Stevens (Timothy Bottoms) make the Omega Station there operational (transmitting signals to aid submarines in navigation).

Near the Omega base, a team of anthropologists is exploring caves and being bossed around by Major Stevens. Seismic tests by the army force an opening in the rocks and soon thereafter, army guards are killed and the Omega transmitter is stolen.

Stevens, Wolfson and the scientists search the new cave and find a lost race of fabled Lemurians, styled here as albinos. The Lemurains stole the transmitter because its high frequencey signal was bothering their sensitive hearing. In warring with this lost race, many casualties occur until Wolfson finally escapes and orders the caves sealed off permanently, to leave the Lemurians in peace.

Extremely tame, "What Waits Below" meanders around below ground without the expected action-adventure excitement. Except for a huge snake head that attacks in one scene, it is minus the monsters that could have made this a fun picture for kids.

An impressive cast is wasted, with most of the attention resting on vast caverns (filmed in Alabama and Tennessee locations), augmented by okay mattework and miniatures.

The idea of making a film about the secrets and wonders of inside the Earth sounds like good idea for a movie but this movie just can't seem to deliver.The actors are bareable(well sort of)except for the main charecter who is just as way to smug.As far as special effects and set the crew did a okay job.And the plot would be better if there were more creatures and stuff and less of a boring,tedious buildup.

The US military is running a test for a special type of radio transmitter in some caves in Nicaragua.When the signal from one of the transmitters suddenly disappears a team of soldiers,scientists and cave-specialists is sent to the cave to find what really happened.But the cave is not safe.It seems that a tribe of lemurian albino cave-dwellers lives there,who stalks its prey by their body heat."What Waits Below" is an overlooked horror movie,which obviously influenced Neil Marshall's 2005 horror hit "The Descent".Pretty creepy and entertaining horror flick with some suspense and effective scares.The action is fast and the infra-red stalking is a nice touch.7 out of 10.

Many reviews have listed this as an underrated B movie but even that is too generous. An overall weak movie that has very little positives to note

Negatives - Slow pace, bad acting and disappointing story make this movie a hard watch. Classed as a horror with an 18 rating but really isn't scary, if anything you might find it funny because it's that bad

Positives - It has an interesting concept but the movie never really achieves its potential

In summary, give this a miss, there are much better movies from 1984 to watch.

I found the basic story incredible. However, when it comes to horror, stories generally are incredible; and I can think of many horror plots that are worse than this.

The plot to begin with is a bit muddled. It is not clear why these soldiers are in the jungle, and who the enemy at the beginning is, and it might have been a better idea to have the two factions slugging it out in the caves as well as having to deal with the rockman.

Nevertheless, the cast overcome the script, and Robert Powell shows that if you can play Jesus Christ you can play anything.

I am glad that the rockmen never got to talk. It would have been too much if they started speaking American English like the extra-terrestrials do on Star Trek.

All in all, this film is watchable.

Okay, as much as I love cheesy horror and as much as I love bad eighties movies, I couldn't go for this one. It was actually pretty good and yet I just couldn't get past Robert Powell being the lead. Now, if you're young you may not know who he was. In fact, in terms of films I wouldn't have known him either. But then I was a fan of British comedian Jasper Carrot. Robert Powell starred alongside Carrot as a bumbling detective in sketches and then in its own TV series. That was how I knew Robert Powell.

Now, I watch a film where a hardened, cut-throat merc leads an army team through an uncharted cave system, only to find there's something down there that they didn't bargain on. And, in case you haven't guessed it, that kick-a$$ mercenary is none other than the man I watched lose playing snooker to a blind man and his guide dog back on the small screen (my favourite episode of 'The Detectives' by the way!).

Sorry, Robert, your performance as the detective was just too damn funny for me to take you seriously here. But I tried. And I tried hard enough to sit through the whole film and, while it may not be Shakespeare, it was still a lot of fun in terms of B-movies.

Powell's actually a good actor (seriously, he even played Jesus Christ in a highly-regarded film) and he's a lot of fun to watch here. He plays off the other characters well and is definitely the high-point of the film.

What does wait below for him and his team kind of reminded me of the second (original) 'Planet of the Apes' film, but I won't go into spoilers here.

It's got no gore in and hardly much that would be termed 'adult,' but I guess some of the make-up effects and scenarios are kind of creepy and may be unsuitable for a younger audience.

It may not mean to be a B-movie, but it definitely is. And it's fun - even if you do see the battle-hardened hero as a Jasper Carrot's sidekick!

Not knowing anything else about the film, the fact that it was shot in real caverns brings to mind the unfortunate happenstance that was 1980's 'Alien 2: On Earth.' With some recognizable names and faces involved in this 1984 production, one can only hope that it would avoid the same ultimate fate. Even from the opening scene I think we can readily discern that this is not a top of the line genre flick (banish thoughts of 'The descent' from your mind), and there are definite faults and weaknesses that become evident over these ninety minutes. Still, while hardly a must-see classic, I think 'What waits below' (alternatively known by the pulp-ready name 'Secrets of the phantom caverns') is reasonably enjoyable, and decent enough to warrant checking out on a quiet day.

Some issues take little time at all to rear their head, like dialogue that's sometimes rather rancid and unbelievable, intimation of a contrived romance (because when a man and a woman share the screen they're OBVIOUSLY attracted to each other), and direction that at points feels a tad brusque and forced (odd for a filmmaker who has a fair list of credits to his name). Though executed well, an action-packed opening scene unnecessary and ill-fitting, as though it belongs in a different film. I would also offer that while there are familiar and esteemed actors here (for my part it's Lisa Blount that I'm most familiar with), none of them particularly stand out - the acting is good, but simply unremarkable, with all just ably doing their part. Lastly, though I don't specifically fault anyone, the design of the antagonistic figures is a smidgen cartoonish and unbelievable, more closely resembling something out of Saturday morning cartoons than the intended isolated population.

These matters are noteworthy, surely, but thankfully none are so severe as to wholly dampen the entertainment, and the biggest factor working against 'What waits below' is just the overall strength of the storytelling, the film-making, and the horror element. Though far from essential, I actually quite like this, warts and all. The filming locations are utterly gorgeous, and to be very frank, so is the art direction; set pieces, painted backgrounds, and props are all flush with just as much detail as the natural cave systems. While the guidance provided to the vanity artists and costumers pointed them in a somewhat garish direction, I nonetheless appreciate their work in and of itself. The post-production visuals are fairly well on par for contemporary fare, and practical effects and stunts look terrific, including instances of blood, gore, and even just environmental mist effects. Denny Jaeger and Michel Rubini's original music is excellent, subtly providing a measure of atmosphere - and to that point, while Don Sharp's direction may be imperfect, he nonetheless shows firm capability generally, and claims a delicate touch that helps the proceedings to carry meaningful tension and ambience as the length progresses.

There's something to be said for the fact that the overall narrative is rather simple, and straightforward, and furthermore effectively demonizes an indigenous population that lives in harmony with their surroundings. Yet the tale and its constituent scene writing is sufficiently strong to evoke an earnest sense of the intended blend of adventure and horror, and is duly engaging and satisfying. The end result is modest - words like "thrilling" are a step too far - but it's a fairly good time just as it is. Not every title needs to be a heart-stopping revelation, and this plays well in its own small space. It's not something one needs to go out of their way to see, but it's worth checking out if you happen to come across it, and is most suggested for those who are fans of folks involved. It won't appeal equally to everyone, but I like 'What waits below' for the light genre fun it serves up, and for a quiet day, that's enough for me.

This claustrophobically creepy subterranean 80s creature feature is still well worth digging out! While many lesser horror films are all surface charm, experienced genre director Don Sharp's pant-soilingly strange, subsoil Sci-Horror adventure is unafraid to explore the murkier, previously uncharted depths of some reality warping neolithic nightmare!!! Forget all the potholes and take a tectonic terror trip deep within the blackened bowels of some primordial, long-forgotten, time-frozen hell!

Not often praised, unfairly disparaged, the splendid substrata shocker 'What Waits Below' provides some refined B-entertainment, dramatically bolstered with a terrific cast of gifted actors: Robert Powell, Timothy Bottoms, Lisa Blount, Richard Johnson, and Anne Hayward. Hey! These angsty albino cave dwellers party like it was 1980 BC!!! In my overzealous, B-Movie boggled estimation, the deliciously dumb, frequently fanciful fright-flick 'What Waits Below' is so much more than just a macabre, mulch-headed monster movie, it's a dazzlingly bejewelled prehistoric fashion bonanza!!!

If you're patient enough to stick with this film, and you dig eerie nightmarish imagery, this film is quite a treat! Personally, I really miss the atmosphere of films such as this that relied solely on the characters, and things not so human, without the use of glitzy computerized graphics, something today, in my opinion that has been over glamorized and almost used as filler. As I mentioned if you're patient you'll appreciate this film, it builds and if you hang on and agree with my review thus far you'll most likely really appreciate this film. All in all check it out, it's not a masterpiece by any means, although it rather strikes my fancy!

I have never really given much thought to underground civilizations and the like, but this movie definitely gets you thinking!

It's a bit slow to getting off the ground, but stick with it, it's well worth the wait!

I didn't think the movie would be so good from the beginning, in fact to be honest, there's quite a poor start to it, and I suspect many would switch off before it gets going. I remained open-minded. I think that the idea was very imaginative indeed, and my only complaint was the movie was over too quickly. Would have made a two and half hour movie, no problem. Still, the idea of any great movie, like any great book, is to leave you wanting more.

However, it had a very satisfactory end.

Don't miss this if you get the opportunity - a gem worth watching.