The Descent is a pretty decent horror film. It doesn't do anything new or exciting, but the cast is good and the premise holds up over the film. If anything the arrival of creatures in the film actually hurts the movie. It provides several "jump" moments and has a generally dark atmosphere that makes it work despite being a fairly generic creature feature.
After an obligatory, quite unnecessary and surprisingly brutal prologue we come to meet our six characters. All women who are about to go on a cave exploration. Once in the cave an unfortunate accident traps them there. They have two choices. Stay put and die or keep moving and try to find another way out. The choose the second one and soon run across some Morlock-esque monsters who start in a traditional movie way killing off our heroines.
The movie moves into a more generic creature gore fest at this point but still manages to keep the plot moving and interesting. There was one completely unnecessary subplot and the American ending is a lot more upbeat than the British version but neither takes much away from the film. If you are looking for a decent horror film, this one works well enough.
1 comment:
Correction: the American ending just leaves you hanging on a last-second plot twist that makes no damn sense unless you see the British version. Seriously, that last flash of the US version just made me think "What the hell?" At least the British version provides some implied closure.
And I do agree that the darkness and claustrophobia of the first half work better than the monsters in the second half.
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