Product: The Descent (Original Unrated Cut) [Blu-ray] (2006)
Rating: 4.0
A movie that explores the dark recesses of the subconscious
First off I have to give credit to someone on IMDB (grayden1977) who mentioned the symbolism in this film. Prior to reading that review I found this to be an average movie. But once you realise the importance of metaphors, this turns out to be a great horror story.Basically, this movie explores the dark side of the human psyche - the side that we don't show and find hard to confront. Nonetheless it's the part of us that is roused when we need to conquer our demons and set things right. This movie could be summarised as an allegorical telling of a particularly nasty argument between two friends - one where no punches are pulled and everything is dragged into the open.The film begins with a group of friends who are whitewater rafting. The husband and daughter of one of the women (Sarah) stand nearby watching. On the drive back, Sarah's husband seems distracted by something and ends up crashing the car leaving Sarah as the only survivor.We then skip to a year later. The five friends have planned another trip with Sarah, in part to lift her spirits but also to bring them together again (we find out that certain girls haven't visited her since the accident). The trip is headed up by Juno, a risk-taking, adrenaline junkie who's planned out a caving expedition for them. She continually states that the trip is for Sarah.We soon learn that Juno had been having an affair with Sarah's husband, which may have been why he was distracted on the day of the accident - it is not clear if Sarah is aware of the affair.The day of their trip starts slowly but the pace soon picks up and they're quickly within the cave. It doesn't take long for the girls to get into trouble but it's just the start of their nightmarish ordeal. The cave is a metaphor for Sarah's subconscious, which is still troubled by the death of her family. What happens within the cave is how her morality manifests itself in the physical world.Throughout the movie, the viewer is challenged with claustrophobia-inducing camerawork, an inventive use of colours, light and darkness and a good deal of gore. But the scariest part is being let into the mind of a grieving woman looking for solace who finds something truly horrifying.*** SPOILERS ***I hate to mention spoilers in a review but this stuff is just too good to pass up. Since it is Juno that leads Sarah and the girls into the cave (and ultimately gets them trapped and lost), we can assume that she is the reason Sarah has been forced to confront the death of her family and the possible causes for it.We get plenty of hints that Juno was having an affair with Sarah's husband and this may have been why he was distracted that day. I interpreted Sarah's morality as somewhat twisted by this point (hence the dark cave, collapsed tunnels and strange monsters) and this is why she feels that Juno is responsible for her family's death.Juno was definitely selfish, neglected to bring a map and left one of their friends to die, but she also tried to save Holly from being dragged away. It's interesting that she tries to save Holly without anyone else around but then leaves the other girl (whom she accidentally killed) to die by herself. Later, when Sarah is separated from the group, Juno makes a "public" show of "not leaving without Sarah".I didn't really like the way the monsters looked but I think they were intentionally humanoid because they represent Sarah's "demons"; specifically, they represent Sarah's evil desire to kill Juno.The ending might be seen as cliched, especially since it involves a dream-like sequence, but I think it works in this case and it wasn't a cheap way of tying up loose ends (as is the case in many other movies).