Lots of fun

Rating: 7/10 (15 May 2011)

There are three types of horror. There's smart horror. There's fun horror. And then there's just bad horror. The Descent falls into the fun horror category. It's the story of a group of women who go spelunking in a cave in Chatanooga. They are supposed to be going a very well known cave of the area but the group leader, Juno, leads them to a completely different cave for fear that the other cave will be a tourist trap. In this new unnamed cave things begin to go horribly wrong. First they get trapped when a tunnel collapses. Then the become prey to a new breed of predator lurking in the cave. From here a disgusting yet exciting gorefest ensues as the girls try to escape from this underground nightmare.
The Descent hones in on our fears of darkness, claustrophobia, and the unknown, then throws in flesh eating monsters just to spice it up. The Descent builds a lot of suspense for the first half of the film in some great scenes of quiet focused tension. Then it really switches gears in the last half when the monsters are introduced and they start picking people off. There isn't anything inherently wrong with this and honestly the last half of the movie is awesome. It is so graphic and so chaotic that you can't help but be entertained. The first half of the film keeps you enthralled with suspense while the second half keeps it up with grotesque thrill after thrill.
You could say that the structure of this film is actually quite intelligent and works as a really impressive feat of horror. The entire first half is spent building suspense with no mention of monsters and very slight and very subtle hints that there is something else in the cave with these girls. The first half is quiet and tense, only to explode in the second half when the monsters are introduced. The same can be said for the camera-work. The direction of the first half of the film is excellent. The way all of the tight crawlspaces and bottomless pits are shot is incredible. You really feel like you are trapped with these girls and it honestly does bother you. Then the monsters are introduced and the direction changes its focus to pure action thriller. This really makes the film intense and exciting and the only problem is that there are many times where you can't really tell what is going on. The camera cuts and shakes too fast and the setting is too dark at times. This might be in order to cover up bad effects or poor makeup, but it really didn't bother me nearly as much as it does in other films.
The Descent is undeniably missing some things like well developed characters and a sharp script. The script isn't terrible but I can safely say that dialouge is not where the film shines. There are plenty of lines that could have been worked out better and some that should have been left out entirely. It's like when a character throws a rock down a dark pit to see how far down it is. We all know why she did this but as soon as the rock hits the bottom another character says to her, "Thanks. Now I know how deep it is." It's little things like this that get in the way of the suspense being built here, but only temporarily. You can get around them pretty easily.
And then there's the second half of the film where you can just see the perverse giddiness of the writers coming through. They have so much fun with the gory action of this film. I can literally see them coming up with this at the table with somebody saying, "So she's running from a bunch of monsters and their all screaming at her. Then she falls into a pool of water and there's a monster in there too!" Or, "So she's crossing a pit and just as she reaches the other side there's a monster hanging from the ceiling and she stabs it in the head just as it slits her throat!" I also imagine the phrase "blood sprays here" was tossed around quite a bit.
But I digress. The Descent is an awesome film that manges to be suspenseful, scary, and a lot of fun. It's not for the squeamish or faint of heart, and especially not for those with claustrophobia, but luckily I am none of those three. Well, I take that back. After watching this film I honestly think I might be a little bit claustrophobic as there were some scenes in here where I almost had to sit up just to bring myself back into reality. Few films bother me like this, so kudos to The Descent for really freaking me out. This movie isn't much more than an fun gorefest, but it accomplishes what it sets out to do. Plus there are some great visuals the whole way through and the film actually scares you. I can easily and faithfully recommend this film to horror fans everywhere.