Move over Hollywood

Rating: 7/10 (1 February 2006)

If you love horror movies but are sick of all the crap that gets churned out of American film studios you should definitely go and see The Descent, the new British horror flick by Neil Marshall. Yes, a Brit! Showing the American movie moguls how a horror movie should be made! Rumour has it that this movie hasn't even made it to the cinema in the US. Wake up America!! This is a movie that will scare the life out of you, I didn't relax from about the fifth minute until the very end it was so tense. This isn't for the faint hearted, I'm not just talking about the moments that make you jump out of your chair yelping but also the moments of suspense when you're on the edge of your chair and also there are some pretty gruesome oh-my-god moments in there too! You can see the trailer here but it doesn't really do the film justice. The director has used a very small cast of mainly low-key female actors, I didn't recognise any of them which made the film so much better for me. (You know a horror film will be shite when Sarah Michelle Geller or Jennifer Love Hewitt are fleeing from a masked murderer with their breasts bouncing all over the place).
The film tells the story of a group of adventure seeking friends who go pot-holing in America. Things go wrong and they end up trapped in the caves below, cue darkness, claustrophobia, and of course, death. The idea of predators lurking in the darkness might seem a little far-fetched to you but the director has based his creatures on the scientific and if you think about it a little, it isn't that unlikely! I thought that the ending was going to be spoilt by some sort of Hollywood finish but I was saved from such tripe. The director takes you on a roller-coaster ride and you don't get off 'til the very end. When the credits were rolling I couldn't move from my chair. The horror movie had done what it was supposed to do , frighten me to death and although the idea of extreme sport attracts me I can safely say that I'll never go pot-holing!