Crew
Director – Jason Connery, Screenplay – Keith Kjornes, Producers – Steve B. Harris, Bill Sheinberg, Jon Sheinberg & Sid Sheinberg, Photography – Thomas Callaway, Music – Bill Brown, Visual Effects Supervisor – Ron Trost, Visual Effects – 11:11 Mediaworks (Supervisor – Roger Nall) & Mechnology Video Effects Studio, Makeup Effects – Phantom Planet FX (Supervisor – Jerry Macaluso). Production Company – Empyreal Entertainment.
Cast
Cuba Gooding Jr. (Captain Mack), Valerie Cruz (Dr. Elissa Cardell), Taryn Manning (Sergeant Sarah ‘Doc’ Harrington), Brandon Fobbs (Click), Stephanie Jacobsen (Yoshi), Jason London (Hicks), Zack Ward (Nickels), Franky G (Sergeant Diego ‘Hammer’ Garcia), Henry Rollins (Father Jacob Fulton), Ron Perlman (Professor Lee Wesley), Weston Blakesley (Father Jacoby), Bill Moseley (Professor Duncan), Ray Winstone (Blakeley)
Plot
Captain Mack has been assigned to lead a unit of soldiers into a research station in Shabaka, Iraq after the area has been hit by an earthquake. They are accompanied by civilian scientist Elissa Cardell who knows the purpose of their mission but only tells them that they are there to rescue her father Professor Lee Wesley. Inside the facility, the soldiers find everything in chaos and dead bodies everywhere. As they descend through the levels, they find that something supernatural has been disturbed – a malevolent force that inhabits the bodies of others and play games of reality and illusion with them.
Jason Connery is the son of Sean Connery. Jason gained fame playing the second Robin Hood on the tv series Robin of Sherwood (1984-6). His career took off after that but has not exactly been high-profile. He has done voice work for animation and appeared in assorted action and genre films but nothing that has placed his name up in the superstar stratosphere that his father inhabited. In between acting, Jason Connery has directed several B movies, including the genre likes of Pandemic (2009) and Area 51 (2011), as well as the non-genre The Philly Kid (2012) and Tommy’s Honor (2016).
For a B movie, The Devil’s Tomb has an impressive cast that includes Cuba Gooding Jr, Jason London and Zack Ward turning up as the soldiers; Henry Rollins as a mad-eyed priest; bit parts from genre regulars Ron Perlman and Bill Moseley; and even Ray Winstone turning up during a handful of shots in flashbacks in the middle of combat alongside Cuba Gooding. That said, the most impressive face amongst the cast is one of the least recognised – Australian actress Stephanie Jacobsen, who plays with a fierce determination that imprints itself in memory. Jacobsen has only made a handful of screen appearances in Battlestar Galactica: Razor (2007) and tv’s Terminator: The Sarah Conner Chronicles (2008-9) – the real question is why isn’t she better known than she is?
The whole plot about a military unit venturing down into the bowels of a vast underground complex and coming up against what eventually turns out to be some type of evil holds unmistakeable overtones of The Keep (1983) in which Nazi soldiers were pitted against an ancient evil imprisoned in a keep in Romania during World War II. The basic set-up of The Keep has influenced a surprising number of other films including The Bunker (2001), Deathwatch (2002), The Devil’s Rock (2011), Red Sands (2009) and Bunker (2022).
The main confusing issue throughout The Devil’s Tomb is that it is not at all clear about what is being kept in the tomb. Does it contain, as the title suggests, a literal incarnation of The Devil? Or just some demons or angelic envoys? There is even talk of the nephilim, which when seen curiously enough resemble grey aliens from UFO lore. It is not clear what is possessing people or why. It is more a case of there simply being a something bad down there that messes with people’s sense of reality with the whys of what is happening not being well sketched out.
Trailer here