The Descent can easily swear you off any extreme sports for life, particularly spelunking or potholing. The creatures that reside in the cave are merely coincidental as the real horror comes from the girls' having to face their own demons and more horrifyingly, each other and the darkness that seems to get darker and darker until it eventually envelopes them completely. Macdonald and Mendoza lead in matters of quality of performance, yet all of the actors are fantastic. The pacing of the film is incredible, with shocks and frights occurring when you least expect them, suggesting the ideas behind the film are creative and committed. I looked at the movie with a new eye and for the life of me I couldn't tell the difference.Ī staple of fantastic modern British horror, the Descent relies on two things to terrify it's audience the bolstering and passionate performances of the all-female cast who present genuine and relateable characters and also the steady direction of Neil Marshall who magically manages to make a potholing tunnel in an underground network of caves seem even more claustrophobic and tiny than it actually is. I was shocked to learn while researching this movie that it was not shot in an actual cave but on a set they made in Pinewood Studios. There is enough build-up to make you care about their relationships, strained or not, so that when the shit hits the fan, and boy does it do that in a blood-soaked frenzy, we are emotionally invested by the time bad things start happening. Refreshingly made with a great all-female cast of mostly strong characters instead of the stereotypical "scream queens" or stupid college kids, this claustrophobic and relentless descent (no pun intended) into both real-life and creature-feature horror is just fabulous. Night Shyamalan, I'm referring to writer/director Neill Marshall, and I'm whining about this because he wrote and directed one of the best horror movies of all time, The Descent, and nothing he has done since matches this masterpiece. Do you ever watch a movie that is so fantastic and memorable that you continue to follow that director's work and either he/she starts producing absolute shite or drops off the map?
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