Disappointing

Rating: 3/10 (11 January 2007)

Neil Marshall certainly knows how to scare us but The Descent is a disappointing encore from the creative mind that gave us Dog Soldiers. While Dog Soldiers was smart, funny, suspenseful and as realistic as a horror movie can be, The Descent is simply a gore fest strewn with contrivances to make us jump in our seats. Are you afraid of the dark? Are you afraid of heights? Are you afraid of being trapped with no way out? Are you claustrophobic? Does a woman stand a chance against a wild beast? Are you afraid of fear? On and on it goes, a continuous sophomoric thread of various frights choreographed to jolt the audience, like a Halloween house of horror built by high school students. There is no real suspense, just the edginess from wondering when the next Thing will jump out of the shadows.
Marshall does a fine job getting the most from his cast and the pacing of the film is just right. He also gives us the originality of 6 very strong female characters without painting them as caricatures or as social aberrations and this deserves high praise. There are many indications of Marshall's talent for bringing fresh ideas to the big screen and his ingenuity as a filmmaker. However, the bottom line is that the weak plot and lack of character development pretty much dead-ends any emotional involvement in this story. What we're left with is an amusement park ride that lasts for about 90 minutes and, sadly, this alone will sell movie tickets and DVD rentals. Marshall has far more potential than this and I hope he can stay hungry enough to develop it.