"WARNING!" screams the DVD sleeve. "Contains provocative and explicit scenes of violence!" The blurb would rather say "WARNING! Yet another piss-awful film by Ulli Lommel!" Everybody who's seen Lommel's "Serial Killer Collection" knows what to expect.
    German Ulli Lommel started out as an art-house director before he travelled to the U.S.A., where he made the rather odd horror hit THE BOOGEY MAN. Lommel continued making a string of B-movies during the 80s, but then he kind of disappeared. I don't know what he was up to, maybe he's been making movies all the time, what do I know, but I can't say I've been wondering.
    Then, a couple of years ago, Lommel realized that you can shoot feature films really fast and cheap using a video camera, and it didn't take long before he flooded the market with buckets of horror movies. I haven't seen all of them, but the ones I have seen were painful to watch. Sometimes you joke and say that certain movies look like they were shot in one day - but when it comes to Lommel, I wouldn't be surprised if they really WERE shot in one day! They're all about 80 minutes, they have few locations, few actors, dialogue and plot seem improvised, and 75% of the movies are filler scenes; strange scenes in slow-motion, snippets of film played backwards, unmotivated tracking shots and scenes where people don't do anything at all. Add splashes of blood and rubbery bodyparts, randomly thrown in by Lommel.
    The sleeve of this film claims it's based on H.P. Lovecraft's shortstory "The Tomb". I don't know my Lovecraft by heart and I've no idea if he's written a story with this title, but I'm pretty damn sure it doesn't have very much to do with this excuse for a movie - more than the name Charles Dexter Ward, which is stolen from another, more well-known Lovecraft story. One of the movie's leads claims the killer of the story is obsessed by Lovecraft.
    THE TOMB plays more like a cash-in on SAW, but on a three dollar budget. A couple of blood drenched people wake up in some kind of storage room, crammed with scary dolls and stuff and coffins and TV monitors showing images of peoples getting tortured and killed. A mysterious kidnapper and killer is hidden somewhere and speaks into a microphone and wants his prisoners to follow leads that will reveal his identity. And then...
    ...nothing much happens. Almost nothing at all happens during the 81 minutes this movie lasts. Sometimes we get to see a man jogging on a beach. Sometimes we see a woman crossing a parking lot. Sometimes a masked woman is horseback riding. Sometimes we see these scenes in fast-motion. Sometimes we see the scenes backwards. Sometimes people get an axe in the head. Sometimes they find screaming people trapped in coffins. Who is the mysterious killer? What does he want? Do you really think I care?
    Once again, it looks like the movie was shot in one day. THE TOMB is more or less unwatchable. It's an endurance test. Congrats if you manage to watch it from beginning to end without taking several long breaks.

You'll hate yourself if you buy or rent THE TOMB.