Spoiler Free Review
Caught it yesterday. Trailers included the Texas Chainsaw Massacre - The Beginning trailer. Why Michael Bay thinks directing this sort of thing is a good career move is beyond me. The Wicker Man remake looks interesting, but nothing else really caught my eye.

Anyway, The Descent. I first heard of the movie about a year ago and have been biding my time waiting for its US release, having heard very good things. I love horror but am quick to distinguish between true horror and everything else. In the past, Frankenstein and Dracula were enough to terrify audiences -- now you have to try a little harder. Neil Marshall tries and, for the most part, succeeds in joining the ranks of excellent horror such as The Exorcist, Alien, and The Ring.

Pre-spelunking events set the tone for protagonist Shauna MacDonald, who is having a bad couple of years. Once into the dark, Marshall's direction evokes tension and claustrophobia well before the things enter the picture. Ego, error, terror and separation take their toll on our adventurers at a heart pounding pace -- the action may slow, briefly, but the tension flows like copious quantities of gore delivered throughout the movie.

Other good points. The movie's protagonists are six females, but it isn't a Girl Power film. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but that sort of theme can be distracting, especially during a serious horror film. It's clear from the movie's start that these are tough, disciplined and adventurous women, but there's nothing gratuitous about it. Also, Juno (played by Natalie Mendoza) reminds me a lot of Grace Park -- Boomer from Battlestar Galactica -- definitely a positive thing. And while there are a few predictable shocks, Marshall's story avoids falling into yawn-inducing cliche. MacDonald's crawl up the "lighted path" toward the end was beautifully shot.

On the down side, I'd have been interested in knowing how such a diverse group of women (nationality-wise) had all come together. It's a minor quibble, but the more you're informed about the characters, the more likely you are to care for them. The only major issue I have is the very end point, which I'll spoil below.








Descent Spoiler-ridden Ending Rewrite
Throughout the movie, Sarah (Shauna MacDonald) seemingly hears her daughter's laughter and, while unconscious, her image. Yet at the very end, after driving well away from the scene of her companions' slaughter, she sees...Juno, who certainly died. And the movie ends. That alone takes the movie from A- to B, and I can't make heads or tails of Marshall's choice here. So I've kindly rescripted the ending for him:

SARAH leans out of the car and vomits, then hangs her head out the window to take in the air. After a moment, she hears her child's giggling, the same sound as heard several times in the cave. She turns back to see her slain daughter seated next to her.
JESSICA: Are you okay, mommy?
SARAH: Yes, honey, I'm okay. Everything is okay.
(Camera through SUV window as SARAH looks forward, smiling)
SARAH: Everything is going to be okay.

Sarah's traumatic experiences have driven her over the edge, and with the above everybody realizes it. In the movie...not so much. But still, a very good film in a genre that is all too often disappointing. If you like horror, go see it.

-TTm

I'm glad to see someone else liked this movie. Personally I really loved it, and it's one of the few movies that have actually scared me. I think the buildup through the first half of the movie really made the second half that much more acceptable. Also I quite liked the ending the way it already is. The way you would have wanted it would be a bit too obvious and quite clichee imo.

Did you see his (I think it was the same director) earlier movie, Dog Soldiers? On this movie site where I hang out alot there are two camps, one which loves The Descent and hates Dog Soldiers, and one that's the other way around.

On a sidenote: did you see The Cave? There are alot of similarities between The Descent and it, but The Cave just sucks beyond belief!

I've seen the latter 2/3 of Dog Soldiers and enjoyed it. Good, low budget werewolf flick (I recommend Ginger Snaps and Ginger Snaps II from the same genre, also released by Lions Gate). I heard nothing about The Cave, so didn't bother.



Spoiler alert
I thought the Descent ending as written fell into cliche`, that last second shocker so common to horror movies (OMG, I don't think they really killed Jason!). But if Marshall (or the producers) really wanted to have that, I think my way works better. I don't see Sarah having residual guilt over hobbling Juno, and she'd been haunted by her daughter's laughter and imagery since the movie began.

My treatment at least brings that aspect of the movie full circle. Add a parting shot of Sarah driving off, alone in the car, crazed smile on her face, and her own descent into madness sends, IMO, a greater chill up the spine than the original non sequitur with Juno. A matter of personal taste, of course -- no "parting shock" at all might have been the best choice, depending on its substitute.

Dear Thormir:

I think you may have missed one of the major subtexts of the movie - namely, that the reason that Juno left Sarah alone in Scotland to her grief so quickly was because she was having an affair with Sarah's husband ("We all lost something in that crash", the looks between Juno and Sarah's hubby at the beginning of the film, several other clues). Faervas and I both thought it was pretty obvious, but I can see some of you men being clueless ;).

Juno's atonement-driven desire to explore the cave "for us", as well as Sarah's attack on Juno for 'leaving' the other gal to die (she could not be sure whether Juno had, in fact, intentionally stabbed the other woman, but that may have been amplified by her own feelings of betrayal) make a pretty decent case for Juno being the image to haunt her at the end. After all, it had been a year since she had 'failed' her daughter, but she had just 'failed' Juno...

I agree with you that the characters could have been better fleshed out at the beginning and that this would have made a much stronger movie - as it was, most of the women were just the equivalent of 'Red shirts' in a Star Trek, or kids at the summer camp slasher flick; that was my main complaint with the movie, actually.

Regards,
Nydia

A friend asked us the other day what we thought of the movie: Faervas said "It's an updated Deliverance", and I said "no, more like Deliverance meets Call of Cthulhu"...

The affair was pretty apparent about 1 minute into the movie. The subtext wasn't lost on me; I just see the influence of the daughter prevailing over the influence of the duplicitous Juno. Several times in the caves, Sarah "hears" the sound of a child's laughter. The "crawlers" don't make a sound like that, so one might infer that her mind is translating what she does hear into that which she wishes to hear. Having gone mad from the totality of her experiences, her mind seeks comfort in that which it most longs for -- the company of her lost child.

Matters with Juno are significant and more immediate, but also resolved, in a way. I don't see Sarah's mind drawing her forth when it could draw forth Jessie instead (which it seemingly had already, in the caves). Cheers =)

A guildie informed me that in the original British ending Sarah drives away only to snap back to the point at which she fell. Her escape was but a dream (a la "An Occurence at Owl Creek Bridge"), and her scream of frustration and hopelessness closes the film.

Actually, that seems to be the ending I saw ^^

I didn't see either, but EW had an article on how they changed the ending for the American release to be a little less... frustrating.