Average fare with some cool monsters

Rating: 5/10 (9 April 2008)

The Descent is all around decent, but not overly memorable. The monsters were pretty effective and the scenes in which the characters confronted these beasts were very well done. These aside, and while better than a cheap slasher flick, there are a number of things that bring The Descent down. Neil Marshall setup an effective atmosphere of gloom and claustrophobia with some great camera tricks and moves. The actresses too all do a better than average (for horror films) performance. But the story is where things get dragged down. The film doesn't seem to know what kind of story it is until about halfway through the film. I knew absolutely 0% about this film before watching it so I wasn't even aware there were any monsters until they finally appeared halfway through. However it's a basic step of story telling to establish your characters and plot in the opening few minutes. Instead the opening seemed to go off on character development that was unnecessary. For example, the initial death of the husband really had nothing to do with the plot (often this kind of thing would be in the back story) other than to give a few scares and set up a future plot device. The scares too were different, relying on a more supernatural tone, like in the hospital as the lights went out one by one. However this isn't a ghost film (as I found out later), its a monster film. From there seeing a group of models going caving in an unknown cave felt a little camp (while the rest of the movie didn't). And lastly the killing of Juno in retaliation for infidelity did not seem to be justified and felt like an out of place attempt to make something deeper and more meaningful than it is. But the plot and character flaws aside the film finishes off with a very interesting ending and some pretty cool monster scenes. For those wishing to see another horror film, this would be a good one to pass the time with until something more memorable comes along.