The Descent

The Descent (2006)
Starring: Shauna MacDonald, Natalie Mendoza and Alex Reid
Directed by: Neil Marshall
Rating: ***1/2

The best horror films are ones that can effectively take a common fear that most, if not all, people have and not only use it, not only manipulate it, but exploit it to its fullest potential and The Descent, the most recent film from Neil Marshall (director/writer of cult favorite Dog Soldiers), is very close to reaching that perfect combination of suspense, violence and surprise that make films like The Exorcist, Alien and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre such staples of the horror genre... but because of a misuse of what seems to be a post-20th century "neo-horror" trend of 1/2 horror and 1/2 revenge, it falls short of its ultimate potential.

The story of The Descent is a simple enough one: Six girlfriends are meeting the mountains for their annual taste of summer thrill seeking... this meeting is taking place one year after an accident that claimed the life of one of the friends', Sarah (MacDonald), husband and daughter. Ever since the accident, Sarah has had problems coping with the loss and so, this summer's thrill seeking adventure, cave spelunking, was set up by Sarah's best friends Beth (Alex Reid) and Juno (Mendoza), to try and help ease the pain. Joining these three are a pair of sisters, Sam and Rebecca (Myanna Buring and Sasika Mulder), as well as a young and adventurous veteran spelunker named Holly (Nora-Jane Noone).

We are shown the individual personalities and compainionship of the six girls through a series of fire-side chats and binge drinking before the big day where Juno leads them offroad to what appears to be a beginners-level adventure but becomes much more complicated than they had atticipated... well, all of them except for Juno, who, after a tunnel collapse when the panicky Sarah gets stuck, explains to the group that they are in an unexplored cave that she thought they could explore and discover together. Needless to say that Juno friends are not happy with her but as they attempt to escape the cave with no sense of how deep it is or where the exits are, Sarah begins to see things in the darkness... things that look human but... also... not. The friends soon discover, as they begin fighting for their lives while they try and find an exit, that it isn't the creatures in the cave they should be worried about... but themselves and each other.

The film is very good at setting itself up, slightly hinting at the tensions between the six friends, namely Juno and Sarah who, it is hinted at early on in the film, left for home fairly quickly after Sarah's accident and may not have been as up front as she could be about her relationship with Sarah's husband... but seeing as how the audience is watching the film mostly through Sarah's point of view, we are never quite sure, even when the film ends, how much of the events are blown out of proportion because of Sarah's mental instability and that is really what makes this film stand out from the crop of current remakes and rehashings from overseas. It's a throw back to the classic paranoia/suspicion horror film that was perfected in films like Night of the Living Dead and The Thing, but with Neil Marshall's vision and willingness to force the audience to experience the violent veracity of the actions taking place, this film is certainly a more visceral take on its predecessors.

Unfortunately it is this same level of violence and the "revenge" on the "creatures" within the cave that make this film seem almost too... tacky for lack of a better word. We've seen this before in films like the remake of Dawn of the Dead, Hostel, Saw 2, the remake of The Hills Have Eyes, High Tension and 28 Days Later where the director, for whatever reason, decides that he's not satisfied enough with freaking out the audience, but wants to gross them out and get their adrenaline pumping too... which, okay, I can understand to an extent but, despite some of the awesome sequences Marshall shows us, The Descent takes a bit too much glee in disecting (literally) the characters one by one through the course of the about 50 minutes they are in the cave. I also think I would have given this aspect of the film more of a pass if the REAL ending was shown to American audiences rather than the bullshit (in comparison) one that I saw.

Here's how the film broke down ratings wise:

Acting: **1-2
I wasn't too impressed with the characters in this film because so many of them appeared to be stereotypes and other than maybe Sarah or Juno, you never got to delve too deeply in to their psyche which, for a film that's basing its fear factor in paranoia, distrust and suspicion, you need more than just cardboard characters who we are merely supposed to assume are friends that would so quickly turn on each other.

I would give the acting 2 stars if it weren't for the awesome scream-queen/Rambo-woman turn by Shauna MacDonald who really does a good job of being the disturbed best friend that really shouldn't be in a claustrophobic situation. To a lesser extent as well, I think that Mendoza does a very ammacable job as the well-meaning but stupid best friend who always needs to be in control. For a horror film, it's not bad, but this type of film is character driven and I've definately seen better acting in similar horror films.

Plot: ***
I have a hard time trying to come up w/ a proper rating for this part of the film because the premise has been done before and I thought there were very many more and better ways that the film could have been executed for a better effect... but at the same time, I think that unlike certain other films that took a good concept and shit on it (*cough* The Cave *cough*), The Descent did a very good job at creating tension and giving enough clues to keep the audience aware of the upcoming twists even though you weren't sure exactly how it was going to all play out. So, I'm giving this film the benefit of the doubt in this case because I really did enjoy it for all of my personal preferences on how it could have been handled better.

Cinematography: ****-1/2
If there is one thing that really just wowed me in this film, it was how beautiful it was. Thanks to creative use of glow-sticks and flares inside the cave to provide lighting, it created a very eeire scene and considering the only two colors used were red and green (quite possibly as foreshadowing for the characters that used them) I was pretty impressed. The other thing that really worked well and one of the things that Marshall improved upon from previous films, was the use of the nightvision aspect of the digital camera one of the girls brought to record their journey... in fact, many of the scariest and best executed in the film came with the audience viewing the cave through the night vision filter.

There is also a particularlly awesome scene near the end of the film that you'll notice as soon as you see it. It's an image I'd really like to has as my computer wallpaper actually... kudos to whomever designed and shot that.

Direction: ***-1/2
I thought the direction of Marshall in this film was actually very good considering the actresses he used and the willingness to put a horror film in the hands of an all-woman cast, something that I can't remember seeing except in movies like The Craft, Susperia or Black Christmas where... in reality, they may have been a female-heavy cast... but not to the extent that The Descent pushed it to. I also give a lot of credit to Marshall being the scriptwriter for The Descent... but as I mentioned earlier, I think that more care should have been taken in developing the characters and the ending should have been executed a bit better.

Entertainment Value: ***-1/2
I thoroughly enjoyed The Descent... it's definately one of the few horror films I've seen come out recently that is actually attempting to BE a horror film and not just some excuse to put blood and guts on the screen. That being said, I think that I would have given the film a full four, maybe even five stars if not for the hurried way the paranoia between the six girls was handeled and the cop-out ending which... I don't think was as effective as an expansion on the European ending could have been.

I also enjoyed how involved the audience I saw the film with got involved... it's something that I really haven't seen in recent movies that I've been to and something that horror audiences used to do a lot more of. I don't think I was every scared by the film... although it did have some pretty unique and effective jump-inducing scenes that made me leave my seat. At the end of the day it's all about whether or not the film was worth the price of admission and I think The Descent was worth not only the price of admission, but is going to be worth the price of a DVD purchase several months in the future.

So, here are how the totals add up:
Acting: **1-2
Plot: ***
Cinematography: ****-1/2
Direction: ***-1/2
Entertainment Value: ***-1/2

We get the final total of ***-1/2 out of 5 for The Descent.