Kicks 28 days later's ASS!!!!!

Rating: 9/10 (7 November 2005)

I have found it hard to find anyone that hasn't enjoyed the joy that is Dog Soldiers. It's grim, gory, action packed and very very funny. But for all it's wonders, it is (forgive me for saying this) very flawed in places. Thank god for The Descent, a film that takes all the good points of Dog Soldiers and amplifies them ten-fold.
If Dog Soldiers is Six guys, one house and a whole lot of guns then The Descent is Six girl, one cave and a whole lot of pain. Despencing with the pitch black humour of Dogs, The Descent plays it completely straight, working more on the sheer terror of the situation rather than the quirky one liners.
Although this is most definitely a creature-feature, the first half of the film focuses very much on, not only the characters but the aspects of primal fear that are inherit in all of us: claustrophobia, paranoia, and most importantly, the fear of the dark. We are with the characters every step of the way and, as such, we empathise with them, sharing their dread, as the situation worsens and their relationships begin to crumble.
Director Neil Marshall adds to this tension in the first hour by only showing us fleeting glimpses of the "crawlers". Marshall is a man the truly knows how to scare the living sh*t out of us and does so with expert precision. Only minutes into The Descent, he has audiences throwing popcorn in every direction. But this is just a mere taste as to the pain that'll unfold.
And there is a lot of pain in this movie. Once the "crawlers" finally make their grand entrance (and what an effective entrance it is) the movie takes an unsettling turn for the worse, turning an already dire situation into a truly epic nightmare. And there is gore...lots of it! Although we see the monsters in full for the second half (often a HUGE mistake for this kind of movie) the film still has the audience in its clutches, ripping away every aspect of comfort, leaving the viewer feeling bare and vulnerable, very much like our characters.
If feeling deeply uncomfortable for an hour and a half isn't your sort of thing, then avoid this movie at all costs because this is not for the faint hearted (or the squeamish). But if being scared beyond all belief IS you thing then this is a must see! Like Saw, The Descent has no saving grace, no Dog Soldiers style humour to ease us, just pure, relentless, unadulterated terror, complete with it's very own downbeat ending.
Hurry up Neil and makes us another!
5/5