An effectively bleak horror

Rating: 7/10 (11 July 2005)

I thoroughly expected this film to give me nightmares. Although not claustrophobic (and still remain blessedly free from such fears), the very nature of this film was enough to prompt me to have second thoughts about seeing it. I have been waiting for a decent subterranean horror story since I was a teenager, having read the thunderously disappointing Midnight's Lair by Richard Laymon. However, I knew nothing of this film until a week before it was released (I hadn't really been following the Marshall Chronicles except that I understood he had trouble getting financing for Outpost). Dog Soldiers was an enjoyable film and fulfilled its goal as a horror-comedy. The Descent however is horror. Nothing else.
While not an outstanding film, it certainly has been the most effective recent horror film of modern times. Marshall's masterstroke in this film is the build-up. Much in the same way as Shyamalan's The Sixth Sense, the menace and dread in the air is apparent even in the pleasantly rustic log cabin the women all stay in before setting out. The camera is often detached at this moment, observing the greetings outside in the rapidly encroaching dark, seemingly impatient to get to their destination, as if it were a portent of things to come. One other particular shot stood out to me. It is when the women are hiking along the stream toward their goal and the camera pans and gently zooms away from them and toward the cave. The music rises in an incandescent hum as the camera glides silently forward. I was instantly reminded of the pivotal moment in Jaws where Chief Brody (Roy Scheider) stares out to sea after the attack on his young son, the moment when the familiar is left behind.
Once inside the caverns it becomes a master class in tension. I was surprised at how the pacing was considered and graceful (the pacing was very reminiscent of the leisurely pace of Alien), but obviously things start going wrong. The group get lost thanks to the misguided actions of Juno (Natalie Mendoza). Panic soon sets in and one of the party is injured. I genuinely chewed my fingernails as the medic sought to create a crude splint. Yet when the group stumble upon a grim tableau of bones and assorted skeletons, the creatures that walk shadows down there reveal themselves.
From then on Marshall keeps tightening the screw and I have to say he does gore very well. It may seem like the camera is pummelled in red, but it's the quick edits and masterful lighting (not to mention the sickening sound), that create the greater, implied horror (the sequence in the, literal, bloodbath notwithstanding). The 'crawlers' themselves are hugely effective in my opinion. The less imaginative amongst us may declaim them to be merely actors in body prosthetics, yet for me this is their strength. Of course they are people; they are devolved humans, utterly vicious, dangerously familiar and wholly aberrant. Their attacks are swift, shrieking and devastating. All I can say is the last shot will remain with me for some time.
Whether I will see it again is another matter. The situation is such a haunting one I will certainly be thinking about it for a long time.