Spain has a strong track record in horror. REC is a masterclass. The Others is a classic. Even Rec 2 holds up. So when I came across a Spanish found footage film set on the sun-drenched island of Formentera and filmed entirely in a real cave system, I was genuinely excited. A cave. Real locations. Spanish horror DNA. What could go wrong?
In Darkness We Fall — original title La Cueva, directed by Alfredo Montero — premiered at the International Film Festival Rotterdam in January 2014 and won the Silver Biznaga for Best Film at the Málaga Spanish Film Festival the same year. It’s a film that had genuine potential, a strong setting, and a deliberate choice to go for survival horror over supernatural scares. The comparisons to The Descent and As Above So Below write themselves.
Whether it delivers on that potential is a more complicated question.
In Darkness We Fall / La Cueva (2014)
The Story: Five friends on holiday in Formentera spot a cave near the beach and decide to explore it. They get lost almost immediately. What follows is not a good time.
🎬 Our opinion: Strong setting, solid performances, and a third act twist that genuinely surprised me. But getting there is a slog — the middle act is slow, the storyline thin, and the characters make decisions that strain credibility at every turn. Quite frankly, it’s a bit boring until that twist arrives and wakes everything up.
Director: Alfredo Montero · Cast: Marta Castellote, Xoel Fernández, Eva García-Vacas
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Five Spanish friends — not teenagers, though they occasionally behave like them — are on holiday on Formentera, one of the Balearic Islands. The opening scenes establish their dynamic: drinking, fooling around, the kind of holiday energy that makes questionable decisions feel like good ones.
On one of their outings, they spot a cave entrance in a cliff near the beach. Someone suggests going in to explore. Nobody objects. Nobody thinks to mark their route. Nobody considers that caves, by their nature, look the same in every direction once you’re deep enough inside.
They get lost almost immediately.
What follows is 80 minutes of five people trying to find their way out of a cave with no map, no plan, and dwindling flashlight batteries — as thirst, hunger, exhaustion, and the particular cruelty of genuine desperation begin to do what no monster could.
The In Darkness We Fall Trailer
Review: In Darkness We Fall / La Cueva (Spoiler-Free)
Review: In Darkness We Fall (Spoiler-Free)
Around the 48-minute mark, I noticed I was thinking about what I was going to write in this review. That is never a good sign. When a film has me, time disappears. When it doesn’t, the clock becomes very visible.
Which is a shame — because In Darkness We Fall starts well.
The setting is genuinely effective. A real cave system on a real island creates an authenticity that no studio set could replicate, and director Alfredo Montero uses the darkness intelligently. The claustrophobia is real. The disorientation is real. There are moments, especially early on, where the sheer physical confinement of the location does exactly what it should — it makes you uncomfortable in a way that no jump scare could manufacture.
The cast also deserves credit. Five unknown Spanish actors, performing in genuinely difficult conditions, delivering naturalistic performances that never feel staged. I believed these people. Which, in found footage, is half the battle.
And then there are the decisions.
I understand that horror films require their characters to make bad choices — that’s the genre’s oldest convention. But In Darkness We Fall asks quite a lot of its audience in this department. Going into an unexplored cave with no equipment, no map, and no system is one thing. Trying to find the way out by running randomly in every direction, without any logic or method, is another. At a certain point I found myself less frightened than frustrated — not by the situation, but by the people in it.
The first act spends a little too long on holiday antics before anything interesting happens. The nudity is present — both male and female — and while it’s not excessive, it doesn’t always feel necessary either. And then there is a close-up in the early scenes that I genuinely did not see coming. You’ll know it when you see it. A close-up that has no obvious narrative purpose but will certainly stick in the memory. Consider yourself warned. 😉
Did you know?
The cave has a name — and a legend. The film was shot in the Cova de Sant Valero, one of the largest caves on Formentera with over 350 metres of underground galleries. According to local legend, the cave was once used as a hideout by a notorious bandit named Vicent Pepa, who stole from a wealthy lord in Ibiza and disappeared into the cave’s depths — never to be seen again. Director Alfredo Montero, who is himself from Formentera, discovered it with a friend and wrote the first draft of the screenplay inside the cave.
And then – of course after 49 minutes – a twist arrived.
I won’t describe it here — but it shifts the film’s tone in a direction that made the last thirty minutes considerably more engaging than what came before. It’s the moment the film stops being a survival exercise and becomes something with a darker, more human edge. I found myself leaning forward again. Not fully convinced, but back in the room.
The comparison to The Descent and As Above So Below is inevitable — caves, found footage, a group slowly falling apart in the dark. But where those films opted for monster horror and supernatural menace, In Darkness We Fall goes for pure survival and human behaviour. It’s a legitimate creative choice. The problem is that human behaviour, in this case, isn’t quite compelling enough to carry the weight the film places on it. Something is missing — a character worth truly caring about, a relationship with enough depth to make the deterioration feel genuinely tragic rather than merely unpleasant.
Verdict
In Darkness We Fall is a film I wanted to like more than I did. The setting is strong, the performances are solid, and the third act twist is quite good and saves the movie. But a slow middle act, characters making decisions that strain credibility, and a survival premise that never quite generates the dread it’s aiming for leave it feeling like a missed opportunity.
Spanish horror has given us masterpieces. This isn’t one of them — but if you make it to the hour mark, the last thirty minutes might just change your mind.
Where to Watch In Darkness We Fall / La Cueva
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In Darkness We Fall belongs to a specific corner of horror — confined spaces, no way out, and the creeping dread of what darkness does to people. Some of the films below keep it purely human, others add monsters or the supernatural. All of them share the same essential nightmare: going somewhere you shouldn’t, and not being able to leave. And all of them are better…
The Descent (2005) — The obvious reference point, and the better film. Six women explore an uncharted cave system and encounter something that shouldn’t be there. Where In Darkness We Fall keeps its horror purely human, The Descent adds a creature layer that takes the claustrophobia to another level entirely. One of the best British horror films ever made.
As Above So Below (2014) — The closest companion piece in terms of format and setting. A group descends into the Paris catacombs and finds something ancient waiting for them. More supernatural than La Cueva, more chaotic, but the same descent-into-madness energy.
The Pyramid (2014) — Found footage, an ancient Egyptian pyramid, and a team of archaeologists who discover an entrance to a previously unknown structure beneath the desert. Going in seemed like a good idea. Getting out proves considerably more difficult. Shares La Cueva‘s claustrophobic premise but adds a little something that takes it in a different direction. Not a classic, but a solid entry in the underground horror subgenre.
REC (2007) — Because if you’re watching Spanish found footage horror and haven’t seen REC, that needs to change immediately. A different kind of confined space, a different kind of threat, but the same raw energy and the same understanding that the camera doesn’t make you safer — it just makes sure everything gets recorded.
