The Descent Review

[Marky Lazer]

The Descent

Directed and written by Neil Marshall
Genre Adventure, Horror, Thriller
Cast: Shauna MacDonald, Natalie Jackson Mendoza, Alex Reid, Saskia Mulder, MyAnna Buring, Nora-Jane Noone.

The tagline of The Descent:Afraid of the dark? You will be. Funny, but not true. The idea really appealed me, claustrophobic here we come. It could have worked really well when the set-up would have been a bit like The Blair Witch Project. Unfortunately, the makers went a total different direction.

A year after a tragic road accident, a few girlfriends meet up again, and try to get away from all the nastiness. The adventurer of the group set out a trip where the girls go explore a cave. However, they’re not going to the cave that they thought they were going. The adventurer wants to gain fame and they are going to explore an unknown cave. Of course they get lost, and they soon find out they are not in the cave by themselves. Turning back isn’t an option either because the entrance collapsed. Obviously. In this cave there live ancient creatures referred to as Crawlers. They are predators and the friends become the prey.

Before you actually see a crawler well enough to define it, we hear a “scary” sound. It sounds awfully similar to the sound the little kid made in The Grudge. And it wasn’t scary back then, and it isn’t now either.
Then the crawlers. They are just big, ugly, blind, slobbering, Gollums. They’re not as eerie as they should be.
Also the promised paranoia isn’t really there.

Last major point of critique. A scary movie should contain scary moments. I counted three of them, and two happened in the first few minutes when they aren’t even in the caves yet.

All in all, it was a major disappointment. The idea of the story still appeals, but in the end, the alien race are the subjects of scariness. Correction: are supposed to be the subjects of scariness. But frankly, they’re not.

[ravenus]

I have an entirely different view of the film. I thought it pretty much did what it set out to do, and I'm certainly no greenhorn when it comes to the horror genre.

For one, I like that it didn't try to do another Blair Witch Project (The Descent in fact has a lot more in common with Neil Marshall's earlier project Dog Soldiers, but with a different gender and a different overall tone). BWP was a very good idea but it's an idea that works once in a very long time. The characterization and exchange of dialog here is IMO way better than what BWP provided. I'm generally averse to all-female casts because they can be awful displays of cheap sentimentality or faux feminism, but none of that crap here: Marshall's characters are credibly tough cookies who demand that you not slot them into gender pegs. I also found the action satisfyingly tense and not holding back on the gore factor.

And as for the look and sound of the creatures, it makes a lot of sense to me in the context in which they exist. I'd expect humanoid mutants that stayed underground to be pale, thin, hairless and blind, and not given too making too elaborate sounds. How many variations can you have on a grunt? this movie is IMO light years better than the lazy borefest that The Grudge was.

In a dark room on a suitably large screen with the sound turned up, this movie is an excellent experience IMO.

[Winters_Sorrow]

Hurrah - someone who hates Descent nearly as much as I do.
I was wondering if I'd seen the same film as everyone else had.

The Descent has entered my top ten worst film list, and not at number 10!
I agree pretty much with most of Marky's points above, but would just like to rant on about a few more flaws in the movie for me.

SPOILER WARNING



1) The "experienced" cavers who are woefully ill-prepared for their trip. They carry no food or water, nor do they even seem that competent at traversing underground

2) The end sequence was so hackneyed and generic that I was genuinely nauseous to realise that, a) I had wasted £3.50 on this tripe and b) lost the best part of 2 hours of my time on this plane of existance - well, I say lost, they were stolen from me!

3) The dialogue - I'm used to shoddy scripts in Horror movies but the dialogue in this was truly horrific....horrifically bad! I kept expecting to see Leslie Nielsen turn up.

I cannot overemphasise enough how amazingly poor I thought this movie was.
I quite enjoyed Dog Soldiers (in a mindless kind of way) and heard all the positive reviews about this, so was looking forward to a good, creepy movie.

The only good thing I can say about this movie was that my friends and I still had a cracking night watching this on DVD as we just talked over it, and improved the dialogue as we went.
"They're going plot-holing" and "Pol-Pot holing" were two of my particular favourites

Rating 1/10 (and the 1 is for good creature design and makeup - NOTHING else)

I enjoyed "The Cave" more than this - it was tenser and wore it's cheesiness proudly, rather than try to pretend it's better than it is.

p.s. Ravenus, I usually agree and like most of your film choices, but seriously, you thought the women in this movie were "credibly tough cookies" - they were whiny, crybabies for the most part, bar the lead protaganist. I found them wholly unbelievable cavers, most gave the impression they'd rather be having a manicure & reading Hello magazine, quite frankly. I found it hard to believe any of them (apart from the short haired girl) would enjoy caving as a hobby.

[ravenus]

they were whiny, crybabies for the most part...

The most part? Maybe it's because I saw the movie a good while back and I don't properly recall, but I doubt much screaming and crying occurs (other than when someone is injured) before the mutants turn up, and I doubt "How to handle carnie mutants" is part of the regular spelunkers' handbook.

Secondly it's revealed fairly early on that Juno has deceived them into an unmapped cave with unknown dangers (even aside from carnie mutants) and nobody actually knows where they are. I suspect this sense of being cut off from the outside world is the sort of thing that would unnerve a normal person.

[Foxbat]

Moving this to the 'Reviews' section

[Paradox 99]

I really enjoyed this movie.
I too am no stranger to horror movies. The only films that ever came close to giving me the willies were "The Omen" when I was 12 and "The Blair Witch Project"... and I've seen a lot of horror.

I didn't find the Descent frightening in any way, but I thought the atmosphere was great. The dynamic of the character interactions was quite good, I thought: there was a great deal of tension between the characters and the lead woman's slow "descent" into madness was executed very well.

As for the crawlers, come on, they were great!
You've just got to love the way they move.

Last major point of critique. A scary movie should contain scary moments. I counted three of them, and two happened in the first few minutes when they aren’t even in the caves yet.

When I watched the film in the cinema, everybody screamed out loud (apart from me) when the crawler showed up in that woman's view finder. That was such a cool moment! hehe. I've never seen that happen in the cinema before - here in the UK everybody usually justs sits like a zombie!

Like all things, it's just a matter of taste.
I must admit, I went to see it with low expectations and came away pleasently surprised... but then, I'm easily pleased.

[Anubis]

If I had paid to see it in the cinema I might have felt a little disappointed.
But it's out on DVD and I think it's not bad if you're just looking for a horror film that will make you jump and keep you on the edge of your seat.

I agree with Paradox that the lead woman's slow "descent" into madness was executed very well, and that the ugly crawling things were pretty good.

You should definitely see this film if you're looking for a film that will make you think: "I know something bad is going to happen and I refuse to let it startle me, but I know it will, and I'm not going to look away, and AHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

[Marky Lazer]

Wha? You mean the AHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!! as if you would be scared by this movie?

[Anubis]

Originally Posted by Marky Lazer

Wha? You mean the AHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!! as if you would be scared by this movie?

More like startled. You know, something hiding around the corner, and then it makes a loud sound, kind of like someone going Boo!

[Specfiction]

I think what prompted me to say something here is a comment up above that the women were cry-babies. First, I saw this movie on DVD--not really my thing, but as far as things like this go--not that bad. Perhaps it's because FXs these days have put everyone in a strange imaginary place where people see people hacked to bits or balance on the side of a tall bilding and shrug--but my own experience with real danger suggests something else.

Most people, when faced with what the women in the story were faced with would have died of a heart attack or be curled in a corner somewhere sucking their thumb. Let's get real--people when faced with out-of-control danger 1/100 of what these women faced require therapy for a decade. Ask some of our soldiers coming back from Iraq what "reality" feels like.

If anything, I would criticize this movie for being way over the top in terms of the super-hero depiction of the protagonists. What's really good is when danger is portrayed in a more realistic way. Comic book danger is just not that dangerous.

[Happy Joe]

I, am sorry to see that others liked this movie as little as I.
Decent was a poor movie, IMO, ... about women screaming hysterical and dieing underground...nearly as bad as Blair Witich Project (the bigger budget helped in this case, but not enough to make it worth the couple of bucks to rent it.
This one definitely goes into the worst movie list. Not scary, predictable after the first body and boreing...just hysterical screeching and panic (not my idea of good acting, writing or plot development).
Even comic book movies are better than this!
Enjoy!

[The_Warrior]

I actally liked this film. It was one of the only horror film last year that did get good reviews(Unlike The Hills Have Eyes remake,man that film was bad). It was cool how they had the whole cast as feamales. Yes it wasn't really scary,but it was a big blood bath.

****SPOILER***

It was cool how they had the first fight with that lady and the crawler. It seemed relistic and not staged or anything.
****SPOILER GONE***

I also liked how they foucased lot on the characters, then the monsters sneeking up on the charcters or somthing like that. And it show at first they're all happy about their discovery, then latter on we see them totally scared out of their minds,but I was dissipionted on the end.