Girls, mutants and gore...what's not to like?

Rating: 7/10 (7 July 2005)

A good sophomore from from Neil Marshall that'll have gorehounds and fans of genre horror grinning from ear-to-ear.
The film suffers slightly from a lack of decent characterisation. You simply don't feel much for any of the "chicks with picks" protagonists. It's not, however, meant as a deep and thoughtful character study, it's strictly genre horror and as such is certainly bloodthirsty enough and contains a level of inventive killings and shocks to satisfy a fan of the genre.
I do feel that due to the director's decision to play it entirely straight as opposed to having an element of tongue-in-cheek means that the film won't be as re-watchable as Dog Soldiers was.
Still, beats the crap out of any of the predictable kiddy-horror Hollywood's been responsible for of late, and as such should be applauded. I for one can't wait for someone to hand Marshall a decent-sized cheque and tell him to go have fun.
Basically, if you like your thrills'n'chills with a splattering of gore then The Descent is a fun way to kill a couple of hours.