The Descent

“The Descent” is a chilling, claustrophobic horror that actually delivers effective scares and plenty of gore. The easily scared should avoid this though!

Sarah (McDonald) is a year beyond the deaths of her husband and daughter, and as an adrenaline junkie, seeks to forget with a group of her friends by going caving in the Appalachians. However, the group’s leader Juno (Mendoza) harbours secrets and misdirection that lead them into trouble underground, and they’re certainly not the only living things in the caves...

The cast is all women, apart from a few exceptions I won’t elaborate on. The contingent of ladies make it not only different to most horror movies in its acting dynamics, but also in that there’s no male hero saving the day; a refreshing change that makes this film better. All six of the actresses are good in their own ways, but Shauna McDonald, who plays Sarah, gets the dramatic grounding in a back story and as a result we feel closer to her. Natalie Mendoza as the leader-figure Juno gets some fleshing out, but the rest are really just there to create the basis of a network of friends who enjoy caving. In that regard, it’s with Sarah and Juno that the audience is involved, and the two actresses are good enough to pull it off. Some special recognition must go to the stuntmen who portray the film’s antagonists. I don’t want to ruin the film in any way, but suffice to say that they create the right amount of menace and disgust to help the film achieve its position as a worthwhile horror experience.

The film itself is an indication that Neil Marshall is one of the more able film directors at this point in time. Merging the horrors of the dark with claustrophobia makes quite a potent mix of suspense, tension and gore that beats out many horror movies of the last few years. All the other combining factors create an atmosphere that would put anyone off caving for life, let alone going underground alone! Marshall, having directed “Dog Soldiers” before this, keeps his eye on horror with “The Descent”, and manages to break two cliches; that a horror director cannot successfully jump between horror narratives, and that an all female cast would not work in a horror movie. After watching this, it is apparent why he got given free reign to make the insane “Doomsday”.

The dialogue is pretty cheesy throughout, and there’s no vocal antagonist, so there’s no witty one-liners or anything. It’s reflecting real life I guess, and so the dialogue is limited to conversation, the group’s predicament and so on. The musical score is atmospheric and quite dark, with one theme recurring throughout that seems to be married to Sarah, the arguable protagonist of the narrative. In the most suspenseful scenes, the music is strongest, giving some effective scares. Re-creating a cave system in a film studio is blatantly no mean feat, but here it’s as if the filmmakers forced the women down into caves to film; it appears so alike to real cave systems! The claustrophobia that comes as a result is one reason why the film is so effective, and the primal horrors of the dark and confined spaces are brought back to life.

It will undoubtedly disturb many people, but at the same time horror fans will get a kick out of this brilliant film.
7/10