Going underground

Rating: 10/10 (9 July 2005)

This is the stuff nightmares are made of.
Imagine being trapped underground with your closest friends and some not very nice creatures preying on you. Then see those who you thought were your friends splinter and the group dynamic fall apart in a welter of gore and primal survival.
This is the basic premise of Neil Marshall's "The Descent". Its a very visceral film which meanders along for the first 60 minutes after the initial shocking car accident and then explodes into life with the appearance of the Crawlers (imagine Gollums nastier country cousins).
From the outset Marshall makes us sympathise with the group especially Sarah (whose character grows throughout the film), who loses her husband and daughter in the first few minutes and even with Juno, the "villain" who is weighed down by guilt of a big secret, whose recklessness gets the group into this mess in the first place. I personally found Beth's death the most upsetting. Her character was the most sympathetic.
Marshall does a good job in setting up the group dynamic in such a way as to make us care about them. Its because of his good writing here and its not often that you find such characterisation in a gory horror film. What Marshall has given us here sets a new standard for visceral shocks. He does rely on one jump-shock too many and I personally do not want to see what a compound fracture looks like (or how to treat one. Ever seen an entire cinema audience pull a nauseous grimace.) Its worth commenting on the production design. Stunning. You would not think it was a film set at Pinewood. It was a character by itself, adding to Marshall observations about claustrophobia, fear of the dark and friendship.
Of course, he could be asking: Do you know really "know" your "friends"?
Bloody excellent. 10 out of 10.