The Descent (2005) ***

Rating: 7/10 (11 February 2006)

Marshall improves on the promise shown in his earlier DOG SOLDIERS (2002) with this nail-biting sleeper. After a slowish start in a belated female DELIVERANCE (1972) mode, the film piles on the shocks and the gore with unfaltering expertise. The all-female cast members are relative newcomers, a factor which adds immeasurably to their vivid portrayal of women out of their league fighting the elements, the supernatural and, at times, themselves. It is to the director's credit that he deliberately withholds the appearance of the "Crawlers" (with their creepily effective Graf Orlok-like make-up) for as long as he does; if I were to nitpick, I would say that I would have liked for them to have been given a different 'voice' - which to me sounded far too similar to that of the creatures in Guillermo Del Toro's MIMIC (1997). The surprise, downbeat, open-ended 'twist' ending, then, is ultimately the natural progression to the relentless grimness of what has gone on before.