text: ...though for a film that seems to be trying to market itself as a horror, there was a distinct lack of blood.<br /><br />There was also a distinct lack of skilled directing, acting, editing, and script-writing.<br /><br />Jeremy London put in one of most appalling performances I've ever seen - his "descent into the maelström" of madness is achingly self-aware and clumsy. Oh look at him twitch! Oh look at him drink strong spirits! Oh look at him raise his brow, and cock his head at a jaunty angle! Oh look at his unwashed, greasy dark hair! Oh listen to his affectedly husky voice! He must be a tortured artist/writer/genius! Oh, yes, out comes the poet-shirt - it's another boy who thinks he's Byron. (Or Poe.) Oh for the love of... did someone give this guy a manual on "How To Act Good" or did they just pull him out of a cardboard box somewhere, the defunct little plastic toy-prize in a discontinued brand of bargain-bin cereal. Okay, that was a stupid line - but that's only because London's performance has melted my brain with its awfulness.<br /><br />Katherine Heigl is cute, and very briar rose, but has yet to grow into her acting shoes in this film - she delivered her lines like she was being held up, in fact, her whole performance was very wooden, her poses as stiff as her lines - who knows, perhaps she was just reacting to, and trying to neutralise, Jeremy London's flailing excesses, but if that's the case, she takes it too far.<br /><br />Notable is Arie Verveen as Poe - while his character's role is confused, he delivers the best performance of the piece. He, quite simply, looks right, but it's more than that - he has some sort of depth, I believed that he had a life beyond the dismal two-dimensional quality of the rest of the characters. Huh, maybe it's just because I like Poe, and could thus just let my mind wander and invent while he was on screen - whatever, he had an interest factor otherwise missing.<br /><br />The rest of the characters are a faceless blur - there are all the usual caricatures: the perky blonde best-friend who's a bit of a floozy; the smitten local cop who's a bit of a dork; the protective older man who perhaps has too much un-fatherly interest in our heroine; the scheming old witch, etc., etc., yawn, yawn. <br /><br />As with the 'distinct lack of blood for a horror movie' issue, none of the themes that they mention (and that London's character mentions - so scathingly - in his attack on Poe's writing) are followed through on. As another reviewer said - there was potential here: murder, incest, - genuinely shocking stuff, but instead they skirt away from the issues, and cut away from the violence (a raised candlestick swinging through the air - closing in on it's victim - then---cut to black! This is fine in a Noirish traditional horror, indeed, it's expected, and is fondly received when it happens - it's a dear convention, especially when accompanied by fake lightning bolts and intense Siouxie eye makeup - but in 'Descendant' it just comes across as clumsy, or as though the editor got queasy at the last minute and cut it out.) This could have either been a very tense psychological thriller - the horror of palingenesis/delusion/madness - or a simple (and fun) slasher movie: it tries to be both, or neither (something new and exciting!), but either way it fails dismally. The only horror element of this entire movie is it's epic dullness.<br /><br />I think the editor (if there was one at all) must have been drunk when s/he chopped this thing up - there are awkwardly foreshortened scenes; scenes that appeared to be out of order (but that could have just been the poor script). LIkewise the director & cinematographer - there were some very strange shots and framing that I think were meant to be tributes to Hitchcock or Browning, but just ended up looking silly (again, fine in a noir, but this was trying to be something else.)<br /><br />The whole thing perhaps may have been funny (in that way that previous reviewers have mentioned - "OMG how did this get made?!?") if I had been in the mood for some trash- bagging, unfortunately for me I had settled on the couch, with the lights down low, with the express intention of scaring myself silly - this is a very poor film, and I'm afraid I can't recommend it to people, not even for laughs.<br /><br />Please, please, don't waste your time or money on this - either borrow a real horror/thriller film, or find yourself a copy of Poe's fantastical tales, either way, you'll have a far more enjoyable and frightening night than you could ever hope to achieve with this rubbish.