Amicable cave-dwelling nonsense

Rating: 5/10 (13 July 2005)

Young Englishman Neil Marshall - the one man band responsible for the lamentable and allegedly "tongue in cheek" horror flick Dog Soldiers - brings us more of the same with The Descent .
Guess what? It's peppered with umpteen jumpy moments, poor characterisation, an utterly implausible storyline, daft twists and a new bloodthirsty, cave-dwelling baddie which I'm sure was intended to be bloodthirsty and scary, but somehow passed me by. If you can turn a blind eye to all that, then The Descent is utterly idle dross which passes the time perfectly amicably.
Six adrenaline-junkie females (all of whom have surprisingly, dare I say it, male traits and psychological make-ups to boot) make the blunder of heading to Appalachian Mountains to plunge the depths of a cave system. While not entirely sure of the group dynamic (it was never adequately explained, or even explained for that matter), nor the reasoning behind their poorly thought out expedition, the group place their trust in Juno (Natalie Jackson Mendoza) - an apparently seasoned stateside campaigner, who makes a few too many schoolboy errors for my liking.
With several clues for the observant (and even the not so observant, bless them), it's fair to say that their jaunt into the unknown is far from idyllic and that this is certainly not going to be their day. Not that I really cared, as the lack of any significant dialogue between the main players, coupled with unbelievable all-too-male jokey moments had me rooting for the hidden foe instead of the band of our boyish tomboys.
It's typically formulaic stuff as the not so intrepid explorers bungle deeper and deeper into the unknown, while the inevitable becomes more and more, well, inevitable.
What emerges from the darkness is that Mr Marshall will stop at nothing to make audiences jolt from their seat. After an hour this cocktail of Wes Craven mixed with 'The Boy Who Cried Wolf' begins to lose its potency, and the canny will have the tactic of bracing oneself at the opportune moment down to a fine art. Nevertheless, the film is paced well enough, with the suspense building nicely toward its all too predictable conclusion.
Despite all its flaws - and they are at times woefully and inadequately clear - the sum of The Descent 's parts somehow come together to produce perfectly watchable twaddle which requires little thought or emotive engagement.
Switch off and enjoy.