A must see for any horror fan!

Rating: 10/10 (5 August 2006)

A group of friends go on a caving expedition only to be assailed by a pack of carnivorous, subhuman monsters. This will doubtless cause many ignorant individuals to suppose that this film is a knockoff of 'The Cave', but hopefully the superior quality and craftsmanship of the film will carry it during its American release. Either way, horror aficionados will know the score, and that Neil Marshall has clearly established himself as one of the most, probably the most, promising up and coming horror director of the new millennium.
Marshall says, in interviews, that his prime inspiration for the film is the early 70's classic 'Deliverance'. This may seems a little strange at first glance, but they have a lot in common under the surface: Both focus on a group of friends who enjoy going on athletic, adventurous vacations only to find that they've now bitten off more than they can chew, facing dangers from both murderous individuals and the natural setting itself. Of course, replacing 'rafting' and 'crazy rednecks' with 'caving' and 'monsters' is a pretty substantial reworking, but it's not tough to believe that this is where Marshall got his main inspiration. In contrast to the all-male major cast of that film we've got an all female ensemble here. We've got 6 people here, perhaps a few too many to allow for any real characterization of a couple of them. (i.e. Sam and Becca) Other then them we've got Sarah, who is somewhat more timid and low-key then most of the others, partially due to the tragic accident which occurred during their last trip. Then we've got Juno, the one American and the authoritative leader of the group, and her reckless Irish protégé Holly plus Sarah's best friend Beth. Again, we don't get to know all of these characters terribly well, as there is little time for characterization prior to their horrific adventure, but they at least aren't the obnoxious clichés you'd find in most horror films, and Marshall manages to create some real pain and sadness in their deaths.
'The Descent' uses an interesting, very effective tactic that you might recognize from Hitchcock films like 'Psycho' and 'The Birds': The film pretends like you are watching a completely different movie from the one you really are up until the point where things really fall apart. This isn't like in some horror films, where they just kinda sit around for an hour before the killing starts, as we've got an actual plot and conflict here: Shortly after entering the cave the entrance collapses, trapping them all inside a previously unexplored cavern which may or may not have another exit. Thus, they have to deal with a wide variety of concerns prior to the appearance of the monsters, including a gruesome compound fracture where they have to cram the bones back into her leg in order to splint it. There are relatively few hints that anything is actually going on prior to the appearance of the monsters, and I suspect that anyone who watched this completely blind would likely be in for a big surprise. This plot works because the pre-monster spelunking is generally very interesting and quite suspenseful. Lotsa horror movies, even good ones, tend to wear out there welcome and become excessively repetitious, but 'The Descent' avoids the pitfall entirely.
Once the crawlers show up things really get out of control, and the film is just this side of incoherent, as the various characters are separated, wandering around looking for each other, hiding, and fighting the crawlers etc. A monster movie needs a good monster to work, and the Crawlers are quite cool. Not truly remarkable or anything, but nasty and gruesome enough to be effective. Needless to say this film is extremely dark, not so much that scenes are poorly lit, but that many portions of the screen are not lit at all, with nothing but flashlights to illuminate it. At a few moments I literally could not tell what the hell was going on the first time I watched it, but these are rare enough that it's not too big of a problem. One minor concern is that the characters are frequently extremely tough to tell apart in the later scenes, but honestly it doesn't really make that much of a difference who is who. Personally, I didn't really find this movie scary, but it is intense and severely watchable, which is just as good. That's another nice thing about the long, buildup, as that it allows Marshall to throw everything at us in the climactic 35 or so minutes, and the film is just unrelenting from the first encounter on.
Many have claimed this film is old-fashioned, and while that it true in many ways, that isn't correct regarding the violent encounters, which are exceedingly modern, particularly reminding me of '28 Days Later'. Here Marshall uses incredibly frantic editing, sometimes makes the movement haphazard and jerky by speeding up the action or cutting frames. (Or, I think that's what is being done, anyway.) This sorta modern presenting it is risky, and many films like this are tiresome and incoherent, but they get it just right here, making it genuinely chaotic but maintaining coherence. I should also mention that the film is fairly gruesome. It doesn't linger on the gore, but there's plenty of spurting blood and flesh eating going on.
The ending of the film is somewhat controversial, and I neither particularly like nor dislike it. Ending horror movies is pretty tough, so I'm pleased as long as you don't blow it, and they didn't do so here. And yeah they did change it for the American release. I've seen both and don't particularly prefer either ending. Despite what you may have head, I don't think the American ending suggests anything different, I think it is still implying what was explicitly shown in the original ending, but whatever.