The Descent (2005) Review
Written by: TiM the Zombie
I know there has been a lot of reviews to the previous film The Descent, but I thought I'd throw my two cents out there. The story starts off with three of the six girls doing what they do best...extreme sports. The three girls are white water rafting down some pretty intense rapids down to where Sarah's husband and little daughter await there return. Right off the bat, we can sense some chemistry between Juno and Sarah's husband which makes you feel somewhat uncomfortable. Things change when Sarah's family desides to head home for the evening leaving Juno and the older sister to clean up. During the drive home, Sarah and her husband try to talk out the situation distracting her husband from the road. A serious car crash follows killing Sarah's husband and little daughter.
The way Niel did the car crash scene was a little bit different then what I had expected, but all in all for a horror film I think it was for the best. The hospital scene afterwards is a little hard to watch but happens pretty quickly and it is wonderfully shot. We then fast forward a year to where the six girls meet up for another round of extreme sports. This time spelunking down in the depths of an unexplored cave. While exploring the cave, the girls get trapped in from a rock slide blocking there entrance out. Stranded in the cave the girls must find a way to survive by dealing with another problem. For there is something else down with them and it isnt human and there hungry...for flesh... I felt that the opening sequences up to the spelunking was a tad bit draggy, in which you start to get less interested.
Character development is widely needed in this film but not that stretched out. The first cave scene is so beautifully shot its hard to explain with words. The shot angle was almost perfect. It takes a turn when the girls head down, down, down. This is when the claustrophobia that everyone is talking about really kicks in. The tricky use of light and sound really is phenominal, and gives you that feeling deep down in your gut. After the rock slide you know there in trouble and thats only the beginning. The panic in the actors was very real and superb. All of the girls did an excellent job and really stayed true to there characters. The cave dwellers or the crawlers or whatever you like to call them vaguely reminded me of Golem every time one would pop up at you.
Nothing bad, just a little hard to stay focused. They looked excellent and were pretty scary nonetheless. The gore was just enough to almost carry this movie a lot of the way. It was a perfect amount and gore hounds like myself were not or will not be let down. The death scenes were excellent and were very realistic due to the superb acting. There is a major downside in this movie that dropped this film down to a 9 in this reviewers mind. The ending. I felt that the ending was all wrong for the movie and didnt really seem to fit in. It was very rushed and sort of sped by me. I have not seen the UK ending but if it is any better than this film deserves a perfect 10 out of 10. Overall, this film lived up to a lot of the hype it was given. This film really might scare you and might even make you flinch. If that doenst happen to you often then I suggest you check The Descent out right now because this might do something different for you. It's definentally worth a buy when it hits shelves whenever the hell that will be. It's definentally worth a viewing one time in your life. So dont think about it, just get your ass down to your local movie theatre and prepare to be amazed.