Great Film

Rating: 8/10 (24 September 2008)

I went into this movie with low expectations. I'm not sure why, but I just didn't expect much. After viewing it I was blown away  it's an excellent film. Just the concept alone was disturbing enough to keep my attention  a few 20-something young women out for adventure - taking calculated risks by exploring a cave to help spice up their lives  has a certain feeling of dangerous vulnerability to it. There's something about the dangers associated with getting stuck underground that genuinely gives me nightmares. Perhaps because I had recently read the story of that poor guy in 1925 from Kentucky Floyd Collins getting trapped in a narrow cave and dying after a couple of weeks was still lingering in my nightmares. Perhaps it's my inability to understand how people continue to explore and die in caves  but "The Descent" struck a nerve and ignited my imagination. The movie started a bit slow but I felt it was necessary to introduce and develop the characters. Still, slow or not, the mountainous scenery is wonderful  the music hauntingly beautiful, and the cinematography spectacular. The movie takes off once the girls enter the cave. After a bit of way-cool spelunking, one of the them (no one saw this coming) gets stuck in a narrow connecting tunnel, and  myself being very claustrophobic, I literally couldn't watch as my thoughts went back to the real-life disaster of poor Floyd. Again I wondered why anyone could consider risking the same fate as desirable. Nor do I understand a person who thinks squeezing through narrow tunnels deep underground is fun. Anyway, she barely makes it through when they experience a cave-in blocking the path they'd just come through. After some intense arguing the adventure planner and thus leader, called Juno, admits she didn't have a map or even if there was another way out. She also admitted it was a new cave system previously unexplored or at least undocumented  talk about a buzz kill. Having no choice they press on. Eventually they encounter blind mutant people living in the caves who are hell bent on killing and eating the girls. The movie quickly turns into a truly gory horror movie which I wasn't expecting basically making this two movies in one. A surprise ending  well developed characters  frightening scenarios  and good acting - the result is a great movie well worth seeing.
Michael