The Descent

Rating: 9/10 (5 August 2006)

The Descent is about a group of female friends who travel into the mountains and decide to go on a cave expedition. Once in the cave things seem to not turn out as they had predicted and soon they will be put to the ultimate test in order to stay alive and make it out of the cave. Winner of The British Independent Film Award for Best Director (Neil Marshall) and Best Technical Achievement for the film's editing at The British Independent Film Awards and The Empire Award for Best Horror Film at The Empire Awards. The Descent has good direction, a good script, good performances by the entire cast, good original music, good cinematography, good film editing and good makeup. The Descent is a film from the United Kingdom and thankfully it was bought by a North American distributor and released here. The film is very tense and has lots of grimy, claustrophobic and scenes that will make anyone a little tense who is scared of heights or tight places. The film is very atmospheric with dripping walls and good cinematography and a good music score to go along with the film's mood and further enhance the tenseness of the film. I liked how these women were well written and they were smart and believable characters unlike most of the dumb and cliché characters we find in most horror movies. And these characters do their best to survive and they don't do the typical horror movie thing by making stupid moves and regret them later by losing their life. These characters you actually feel for and you can feel and relate to their fear and quest for survival. The film is set in a cave for the entire movie, but not once does it get boring or tedious. Once this film grabs you it takes you on a ride and won't let go easily. The writing here is very sharp with well written characters and an unpredictable and suspenseful film that really does keep you thrilled the entire length of the movie. The film also looks great and because of it's atmosphere and look it makes the settings all the more real and because a lot of the film is in the dark it adds to the mystery and suspense of the film. I was very entertained by this movie and it also did it's job of keeping me on the edge of my seat and pretty tense throughout the whole 99 minute running time. This film is vastly superior to almost all of the recent horror movies (with a few exceptions such as The Devil's Rejects), but this film is very special because it doesn't rely on a big budget to scare you and it doesn't go overboard with it's music or gore. These are real people in terrifying situations and because of how real and claustrophobic director/writer Neil Marshall makes the scenes we feel pretty much what the characters feel which is a feeling of dread. This film was very powerful and one of the best horror films in a long time. This film will be looked back upon in years to come as a great addition to the horror genre and in several years it will become a classic that will be rented numerous times for Halloween get parties and just times when you and your friends want to watch a scary movie that delivers the goods. The Descent works on all levels that a great horror film should work on and I'm glad to say that I really liked this film and it is one of the best films of the year and one of the best horror films in a long time. Also, I would like to thank the distributor for picking up this film and releasing it in North America and the marketing for this movie was great and thankfully gives away virtually nothing from this movie, so all the suspense is for you to experience when you see this for the first time which I hope you the reader will do.