The Only Way Out Is Down

To most of us a river represents a source of life. Ask any survival specialist and he’ll tell you, when you find a river stick to it, it will either lead you back to civilisation or hopefully you’ll encounter some form of it along the way. Usually that’s the case – when you are above the ground. When you are 2 kilometers below the Earth’s surface in a cave of which the exit has been flooded, following a river becomes a whole a new ball game and you better be ready for whatever comes your way. 

In ‘Sanctum’, a group of explorers are faced with exactly such a dilemma. What started out as the greatest expedition in years, suddenly becomes their worst nightmare.

To the leader of the party, Frank McQuire (Richard Roxburgh), a veteran explorer, ‘giving up’ is a foreign term and something that is simply not part of his make-up. So when he decides to push on through a very sketchy part of the cave and leave the bailout cylinder for him and his buddy-diver behind, a series of life-threatening situations is set in motion. 

Esa-ala: The Mother of All Caves

A bailout cylinder serves as  back-up air supply, should a diver experience any problems with the system he is using while busy with a dive.
Leaving their bailout behind to fit through a narrow underwater squeeze, proves to be a costly mistake when his buddy-diver suddenly bursts a hose of her re-breather and they have to buddy-breathe with a full-face mask something, any diver will tell you is extremely dangerous. 

  
The expedition team was already anxious before the dive; a big storm was busy developing and the chances of being stuck underground was a real threat. Fortunately, they have radio 'comms' with some crew above ground, and strictly speaking, they should get warned in time and have no problem making it safely to the top. Mother Nature however waits on no one. When things take a sudden turn for the worst and the storm turns into a cyclone, the entrance to the cave gets sealed off from all the rain and Frank and the rest of his team is put to the ultimate test to survive and find another way out.

The underwater scenes of ‘Sanctum’ is spellbinding and the plot of the movie carries you as viewer steadily along. There are some very tense moments where you actually hold your breath with the characters when they are underwater, hoping they can make it to the next safe place. 

If you are unfamiliar with, or completely in the dark about extreme sports such as cave-diving, abseiling/rock-climbing and base-jumping, the sheer magnitude of the risk factor involved when attempting such high-adrenalin sports by these actors is enough to keep you glued to the screen throughout this movie. The technical jargon, equipment and techniques used in ‘Sanctum’ by the cast during their expedition, are spot-on and affirms the credibility of the film, especially to those viewers practicing such sports. 

Besides for the suspenseful drama of the story, there is also lots of tension between Frank and his son Josh (Rhys Wakefield). Josh doesn't really know his father and what little he thinks he does, is hardly anything good. Inside the cave the two of them are forced together into some emotionally confined spaces too and navigating their way through those also becomes just as important to their survival as finding a way out of the cave itself.
 

The message ‘Sanctum’ leaves you with is profound and clear: ‘Surviving depends on taking responsibility for your actions and no matter what happens – you never, ever give up!’

'Sanctum' - Produced by James Cameron.