Neil Marshall knows his horror.

Rating: Null/10 (13 January 2007)

The Joe Cool Experience: The Descent(2005)
Starring: Shauna McDonald as Sarah Natalie Mendoza as Juno Alex Reid as Beth MyAnna Buring as Sam Saskia Mulder as Rebecca Nora-Jane No one as Holly
Plot: Six women exploring a cave become trapped far underground and soon realize they are not alone as creatures that crave flesh live underground and have discovered them. They must now try to survive and escape the cave.
I was looking forward to Neil Marshall's follow-up to Dog Soldiers, because that movie was a fun ride. I had a good feeling about this when I finally got the chance to watch it. This time he takes six women(as opposed to a majority of men in DS) and traps them in a cave with a bunch of monsters that want to eat them. I had no problem with that at all. Why change the basic formula that worked for you before?
However The Descent varies because they don't have much room, they can't really see that well, and they don't have very many weapons at their disposal. This makes it tricky as to how many of them survive, if any, and if they do, how they accomplish that.
A complaint could be made about the lack of light through a lot of this. There are times when you can't see well. I didn't like it at first, but in reflection I feel that it helps this movie more than hinders it. It sort of places you in the cave with them and when the first creature is finally revealed, you're just as shocked as they are. The first big reveal could not have been shot any better. especially with how they were having to use the night-vision function on the camera because it was almost pitch black in the cave. The darkness adds to the terror and paranoia of the movie. Paranoia is a big theme. The girls begin to question each other in the cave as well and only worry about the survival of themselves and not their friends.
I did have some problems with this movie though. For starters, with the exception of three, Sarah, Juno and Holly, the girls are pretty much indivisible from one another. It was hard to tell Rebecca apart from Sam, for example. Not much was done to help that. I also felt the ending was severely lacking. It added an element right at the closing frame that didn't need to be added, period. There was no reason to do it, and I didn't like it one bit.
Even with the flaws, however, The Descent was a well-made horror film and a nice follow-up to Dog Soldiers. Neil Marshall knows his horror and I expect we'll see more of the same quality from him in the future.
Rating: **** of *****