Terrifying

Rating: 8/10 (13 December 2005)

It's refreshing to go to a horror film that's not rated PG13 and get genuinely scared. I wasn't particularly keen on watching this film after seeing the trailer (which in my opinion makes this seem like a terrible B-grade movie), but I'm delighted to say that this is one of the better horror flicks in recent times.
The movie starts off with some nice aerial photography of the Appalachian mountain region, with winding roads flanked by dense forests (a la The Shining). The plot is fairly straight forward - an all-girl team of adventurers find themselves trapped in a cave system infested with strange looking blood-thirsty creatures. While this might seem to be rather derivative, the direction is excellent and captures the sheer terror and helplessness of being trapped in very claustrophobic surroundings. Minimal yet sufficient lighting from the torches of the members, ensures that the movie doesn't deteriorate into making the darkness as an excuse for bad CGI (speaking of which there is virtually none).
In fact, to its credit, The Descent is probably just as scary or even more so before the appearance of the creatures. I found myself flinching at the carnage and even rooting for the survival of the protagonists as the onslaught began. The dialog is kept to a minimum (you will not find any one-liners here) and the characters' actions are largely believable given the situations. The acting is uniformly good and does not detract from the atmosphere. The director has to be commended for making a great film with such a low budget and this is rightfully the successor to those classic Evil Dead films.
If you are a horror fan, this is a must-watch movie - it'll help you erase those painful memories of horrendous remakes or movies ruined by excessive use of CGI. Even for the normal viewer, The Descent offers enough to merit the cost of a movie ticket as long as you can stomach the violence that earns it an M-18 rating.