THE DESCENT

THE DESCENT
By Ken Leicht

For several months, or has it been a year? I’ve been hearing about how great THE DESCENT is. As I am a huge fan of DOG SOLDIERS, Neil Marshall’s last film, I naturally became very excited. A friend of mine loaned me a copy of the UK DVD a few months ago as it appeared there was no US release date looming. (This has of course changed as Lionsgate is releasing the film over here.) What follows is a review of the UK version.

THE DESCENT tells the story of a group of female thrill seeker friends. The opening sequence has them white water rafting down a violent waterway. Being a horror film, one could assume disaster was coming. However, all the women come out of the water unscathed. It turns out that tragedy is just over the horizon though as Sarah and her husband are in a terrible car crash where he and their child are killed in a horrible Final Destination-like fashion. After the accident, the friends sort of drift apart. Sarah becomes depressed and haunted, perhaps borderline cracked up.

A year passes and Juno, the spunky fireplug of the group suggests that they all take a healing trip to re-bond and maybe lift everyone back up to where they were before. This time around it’s spelunking (i.e. cave exploring). What the others don’t know is that Juno has chosen an unexplored cave that’s off the map...a fact which of course becomes a huge problem for everyone. Once everyone finally gets into the caves, it isn’t long before Sarah, Juno and their friends realize they are not alone. Soon they are racing to escape the caves and the evil flesh eating inhabitants.

If this plot sounds familiar, it’s probably because it’s similar to last year’s awful THE CAVE. But while that film managed to make a premise that’s always creepy boring, THE DESCENT makes it, for lack of a better way of putting it, nail biting. In fact this is one of those films that hit it’s target so well that I’ve actually heard friends who would be loathe to use clichés actually say things like “I was on the edge of my seat.”

Sadly, I was not on the edge of my seat. For me THE DESCENT was a victim of far too high expectations and being seen on my crappy non 5.1 sounding TV. This is not to say that I didn’t like the film because I do but I think it will definitely be more enjoyable in a theater.

The beginning is great. The opening crash is great and the early cave scenes really put you into that scary place. Once the monsters come it’s strangely not as scary as the build-up but again, maybe in my noisy living room, the tension was lost.

Doing my best to not give anything away…The US version supposedly deletes the original’s downbeat ending about which I have mixed feelings. A lot of times downbeat endings just seem like someone’s attempt to be so anti-establishment or like 70’s/80’s horror…You know the “Everybody Dies, no happy ending, it isn’t REALLY over” shit that just fucking annoys me. In this case my problem is that it seems odd pacing-wise. The tone starts to take a turn towards the end when people go into fight back mode so when things sort of peter out shortly afterwards it just didn’t feel right. I didn’t have as much of a problem with the downbeat version intellectually; it just didn’t flow for me. Having it end in the more upbeat fashion actually plays better or flows better or whatever.

Maybe I need to see it again. I suspect that I will.

In conclusion, I guess it’s a mixed review from me but more mixed positive, than mixed negative. Definitely see it in a crowded theatre.