Good horror flick, but its importance is exaggerated

Rating: 6/10 (5 February 2007)

The Descent
As a lifelong horror fan it takes a fair bit to get me excited about a fright-flick these days, but 'The Descent' had me rubbing my hands together. Back in 2002, British director Neil Marshall did the impossible and breathed new life into the werewolf archetype with his gory indie film 'Dog Soldiers'. I was lucky enough to interview him around the time of its DVD release and he was obviously a guy who knew his horror. So when I heard that The Descent was being hailed overseas as the scariest thing since 'The Blair Witch Project', I was pumped. Neil Marshall with more than $5 to spend? Hell yeah!
'The Descent' starts out well, with a flashback road accident that is the stuff of nightmares  enough to make even a hardened horror veteran flinch in his seat. The present-day narrative begins as we are introduced to Sarah, a woman who has recently lost her daughter and isn't taking it well. Juno, supposedly Sarah's friend, is an outwardly tough woman who has more or less abandoned Sarah in her time of emotional need.
The estranged pair meet up again at a log cabin deep in the American forest, where they join a group of acquaintances  thrill-seeking women who plan to rappel down into an underground cave and squeeze through its tight shafts to get their kicks. (Strong yet believable female characters  an all-too-rare cinematic achievement.)
They're a good mile or so underground when a rockfall blocks off the way they came in. No problem  this cave is supposed to have two ways in and out, and the girls ask Juno to check the guidebook for information. Trouble is, the risk-loving Juno has taken them to an uncharted cave, hoping to claim it and name it. As they search for a way out, it becomes clear they aren't alone in the complex subterranean system. Something else is in there with them  and it's not friendly.
Neil Marshall, what have you wrought here? 'The Descent' is like a deformed hybrid of 'Aliens', 'Pitch Black' and 'Predator' that fails to measure up to any of its forebears. For a sadly short 20-minute period, 'The Descent' does create a cloying sense of claustrophobia akin to 'Aliens', and as he did in 'Dog Soldiers', Marshall caters to horror buffs by weaving homages unobtrusively into the plot. But these elements only serve to make the other 75 minutes a bitter disappointment.
So what exactly is wrong with 'The Descent'? Cheap frights are one problem  the unconvincing CGI bats that burst out of the cave entrance are an unpleasant entree hinting at the meal of the horror clichés to come (including those tired old 'Look behind you!' moments). The overuse of high-speed shutter is another  in small doses it can give a scene a frenetic feel, but Marshall employs so much of it that it's often hard to tell what's going on at all. Lastly  and this would be forgivable if everything else was up to scratch (see Pitch Black)  the science regarding the cave creatures is all over the place.
Now, there are two versions of the film out there, one for UK audiences and one for US audiences. The UK version (which we got in Australia) has a rather more ambiguous ending. But frankly both climaxes are unsatisfying and make The Descent seem like a $9 million version of the stories we all wrote in primary school that ended with, " and then I woke up."
By no means is The Descent a bad horror movie. The central premise is good, the acting more than competent and some of the sets are exceptional. But its significance in the overall history of horror films has been grossly exaggerated.