Dr. Drew says.... 9 out of 10

Rating: 9/10 (21 March 2014)

The Descent (2005) - The Good, the Bad and the Claustrophobic
Synopsis: After the death of her daughter and husband, Sarah reluctantly joins her thrill-seeking girlfriends on a cave diving expedition in the heart of the Appalachian Mountains. After being tricked into entering an uncharted cave, the girls find that they are very lost and not alone.
The Good: This is one of my favorite horror movies of the last ten years. Director Neil Marshall gets just about everything right. I've seen a bazillion horror movies and rarely do I find them scary, but this movie hits the heart of my fears. Isolation, abandonment, fear of the dark, claustrophobia, being completely lost in a hopeless situation... and that's all before they are attacked by mutant, cave-dwelling hominids. Marshall gives just enough time for strong character development, so that you care about what happens to the women, yet doesn't make you wait too long before things start going horribly wrong. He also paints a compelling back-story between the girls that makes for some intriguing and tense moments near the end of the movie. Several other cave-diving/spelunking movies have tried to do what The Descent did and didn't come close, so it's not just the suspenseful environment that carries the movie. It's really the strong character development and the cinematography that lift it above and beyond many other same-genre films.
The Bad: I'm not big on nitpicking. Most movies are going to be less than perfect. The Descent is no different. There really aren't any major problems with this movie, but if I had to pick one, it would be the ending. With the spoiler tag firmly attached, the ending of the movie goes through a dream sequence where you see the protagonist escape as the sole survivor... to the point where she gets in her car and drives away. The fact is that, yes, you realize it's all a dream and she wakes up, still in the cave. It's assumed by the ending that she dies there in the cave, but it's never really shown. Me personally, I hate dream sequences. It's an easy cop-out to show a lot of cool things and then renege on the consequences. Here, it's done a little bit backwards (i.e. instead of showing the consequence first then reneging), but it's still misleading for really no purpose that I can think of. You are meant to think she succeeded in escaping, alone, only to have that ripped away from you and realize the last 15 minutes of the movie never really happened. Not sure why Marshall elects to take that path. It doesn't really do anything but infuriate the viewer. Strange artistic choice, but if that's my worst beef with this film, I can still live with giving it a 9 out of 10.
The Claustrophobic: There is one scene in this movie that affects me more than any scene in any horror movie. The girls are still of the assumption that this is a lower class cave and that the paths have been well-traveled and reasonably safe. The cave, however, gets more and more narrow. Sarah, having been through significant recent trauma with the loss of her family, is a bit of an emotional wreck already. Finally, the cave comes to a small tunnel, barely big enough to squeeze and maneuver through. She is the last one through. She gets stuck and begins to panic. I get goosebumps simply writing about it. As her friend tries to coax her through, the rocks shift and the tunnel gets tighter. Immediately, her friend's demeanor turns from gentle coaxing to panic. "Move! Move! Sarah, you've got to move NOW!" Wow... that scene is just exhilarating. The thought of being trapped in complete darkness where you can't move forward or backward hundreds of feet below the surface of the planet does it for me.