Brilliant

Rating: 10/10 (30 May 2008)

As any critic will tell you, the rule of thumb is that the more developed a character is, the more you care about what happens to them, which translates into how effective the movie will be. There are exceptions to this rule however (John Carpenter's masterpiece "Halloween" being a prime example). Some films try to bypass this route and go straight for an all-out action scarefest. This is extremely difficult, and in order to work, everything else has to be pitch-perfect. Neil Marshall has the guts to attempt this ambitious trajectory, and he certainly has the skills to do it.
In movies like this, plot is inconsequential; it's just a set-up for the director to go wild and provide a plethora of scares. Basically, a group of women go on a caving expedition after one of them suffered a tragedy the year before (of course). As one can probably guess, nothing goes as planned.
It's really pointless to try and address the acting. Apart from two or three of the women, no one really has a well-defined character, and apart from the two I just mentioned, I challenge anyone who watches this to remember anyone else's name. They're all just a bunch of faces and voices. However, the women are normal enough that we care about them simply because we are human, and they're not irritating or dull. They act like real people.
This is Neil Marshall's movie through and through, and with this movie, he makes a grand and bombastic entrance into the list of most memorable horror movies. Marshall uses everything at his disposal to maximize the scares and keep the adrenaline pumping throughout most of the 99-minute movie. His camera angles are expertly chosen to get the claustrophobic feeling of being trapped in a cave, and they give a chilling insanity and disorientation to the feel of the movie.
It's no secret that this is a monster movie, but what's really interesting is that the monsters don't come until pretty late in the movie. Marshall skillfully sets the mood and gets the adrenaline and uneasiness going by throwing in some realistic situations long before the monsters ever show. I won't give any of them here, but it works.
One thing I really liked is that this is a horror-movie through and through. There are no self-referential jokes, no cute pop culture references, or anything like that. In other words, this takes the dark scary route head-on and doesn't follow the trend that the "Scream" movies started by adding jokes in it (nowadays they're usually added because few people know how to make a movie scary anymore, and the producers want SOMETHING that's definitely going to be marketable in their movie, so they cover two genres with one movie). Marshall makes this a pure heart-pounder and it's so much more refreshing because there's nothing to dilute the scares.
Not everything Marshall throws at us works. Some of the non-jolt scares don't work. Additionally, the prelude where we are introduced to the characters is a little long (though that was probably me just eager for the scares to start).
With every horror movie, there are always low-grade critics who label every movie with praise like "scary as hell" and "terrifying" and the like. Usually, those blurbs aren't worth anything, but here, those are descriptions that I would use any day to describe "The Descent." It's a 90+ minute adrenaline rush.