How James Cameron's 'Sanctum' Ruined My Life

Hollywood has dropped the ball. As a matter of fact, they dropped the ball about six months ago. Anyone who has been to the movies lately knows that for a good while, there was absolutely nothing to see. Unless you wanted to see a movie about lawn gnomes coming to life and talking--which would be one of my greatest fears anyway--you were shit out of luck. But when my boyfriend and I caught the trailer for Sanctum, our faith in the movie industry was renewed! This movie had beautiful scenery, action, water, good-looking Australians with their adorable alien accents and it was directed by James Cameron--pretty much a flawless recipe for a good flick.

I have never been more wrong about anything. Ever.

Going to the movies is supposed to let you escape from your real life for one to three hours, and go someplace downright better. And for the first hour of Sanctum, that's exactly where we were--beautiful Papa New Guinea, watching people explore a huge, exotic cave. Everything was great and we wished we could be right there with them.

Then they started to drown.

It's no question that the fear of drowning is common, but when I say I am terrified of the thought, I mean it. Truly the walking Girl Oxymoron, swimming and the ocean are my two favorite things.

All right, so the first lady drowned. Fine, no problem--maybe a bit of a snafu for her friends. Then, it started to rain. A little weird, but I was still on board and willing to forgive James Cameron for playing on my fears once. After all, he gave us Leo's Titanic era and I can't be mad at that. Then the cave started to fill with water, trapping them in an endless maze of tunnels and for the next hour and a half, I watched everyone drown one by one. And not just drown--a few of those were forced drownings, to "put people out of their misery."

Out of their misery and straight into mine. My mouth hung agape in absolute terror until the credits rolled and the lights went up.

But the terror didn't end there. Aghast at the atrocities I had seen, I declared Sanctum my mortal enemy--everyone, and I mean everyone I know heard about how disturbing this movie was. I may not have hurt Sanctum's [less than impressive] box office sales with my soapbox proclamations, but I'd be damned if I wasn't going to try.

But Sanctum would have its revenge. For the next two months, every Law and Order had someone getting pulled out of the Hudson River. The Perfect Storm was on every other channel for two straight weeks. Since that fateful day I have had not one, not two but three dream-mares about being sucked into that movie. And every time, not one person listened to me:

"Why don't you just wait for the whole cave to fill up with water and just rise with it to the top?!"

Fucking idiots, the lot of them. Sure enough, the film has been burned into my fragile psyche. James Cameron, you have betrayed me.

Sanctum: 3. Kate: 0.