Product: The Descent (Original Unrated Cut) [Blu-ray] (2006)
Rating: 2.0
A cute movie, but let's not get carried away!
A group of girls, some similar to the Powerpuff girls in prowess, get in lots of trouble when they embark on an adventure in an unchartered cave with some little surprises waiting on them deep in the cave. To be quite honest with you, I have lots of friends that are girls, and not one of them would even think about going into a cave like that! Anyway, "The Descent" starts off very well, and it is a very entertaining movie, overall. In fact, the very isolated and claustrophobic trappings of the dark cave scenes were really effective at creating a superb presentation of terror and horror movie atmosphere. The creatures that the characters encounter are quite creepy at first. However, when these girls start killing them like roaches, the creatures lose a bit of their prowess as horror movie villains so to speak.All in all, this is a good effort with only barely adequate acting...the characters really don't stick out with any kind of consistency except for Juno, who is undoubtedly the most flawed yet also the most interesting character of the bunch...that's not saying much at all, however. Of course, there is also the idiot, Holly, who is so impetuous you cannot help but be disgusted with her stupidity. Still, it is difficult to relate to these characters at least to some degree. Part of this may be due to the nature of the movie itself, how dark the setting of the movie is which causes difficulty (at least during the first viewing) in distinguishing the characters other than Juno, Sara and the idiot, Holly. This movie does suffer from lack of character development (which is part and parcel for a movie of this nature), and undynamic characters as a whole. The acting could have been much better, especially Sara played by Shauna McDonald, and, to be perfectly frank, the creatures realistically should have been more formidable against Juno and Sara. Just think about that for a moment...in reality, do you really think any of these women would have stood even a snowball's chance in hell at getting out of this cave alive with those things in there? I mean it's not like these girls are the powerpuff girls or anything...well, on second thought, as this movie portrays them, maybe they are or something like that I guess.Still, the creators of this movie were really on to something and the first half of the movie was very good! It's only that when Juno and Sara start killing the creatures like roaches in the basement that the movie's credibility as a horror movie becomes questionable in my opinion, and that is enough to bring the movie down a little bit. I think "The Descent" is a cute movie and worth owning, but it stars the Powerpuff girls-type characters, and that's kind of lame and unrealistic when you think about it, at least that is my opinion.Sure, girls can be tough as nails, but this movie goes too far in this regard. In reality, these creatures would have made minced-meat of these women. I mean Ripley in "Aliens" had a hi-tech machine gun to fight off the aliens...these girls had some climbing tools and they chop up the creatures like they are Japanese steakhouse chefs chopping up zoucine and onions. Indeed, the primal instincts of these women became apparent by the movie's end, but if the creators of this movie were looking for strict realism, these women would not have survived the first attack of these creatures. The fact that Juno and Sara are transformed into She-Ra type characters cheapens the movie in my opinion, at least to a certain extent. Still, "The Descent" is a pretty good horror movie and is an example of a movie that points the horror genre in the right direction, albeit very imperfectly.