Intense, internal.... (minor spoiler)

Rating: 8/10 (14 August 2007)

Watching The Descent scared the hell out of me. But more than that it stayed in my head for several days afterward and became something of an intellectual/fearful exercise. For a seemingly straight-ahead horror fest this flick has got some real depth (apart from the milieu)-so much so that none of it needs to have actually, physically happened to the characters for the film to hit its mark. Though it is never plainly stated, you can conclude (if you want) that it was all a product of the grief-stricken mother's imagination...a death vision in the same vein as Jacob's Ladder, though much more coherent than Jacob's... In any case, this claustrophobic, unrelenting film is slated for timelessness in my book. Because like so many great films (especially in the horror and sci-fi realms) The Descent is as much an emotional trip inward to the dark parts of ourselves as it is a physical journey.