The Descent (2005)
Time: 1h 39mins
Director: Neil Marshall
Quick Summary: A caving expedition goes horribly wrong, as the explorers become trapped and ultimately pursued by a strange breed of predators.
This could have been so good, but ultimately it falls flat in a few places.
Firstly, I found the whole group of women bizarre as they were either incredibly obnoxious or plain boring. Even that main character so much that I actually forgot her name. I genuinely can't remember the names of any of them which made it incredibly difficult to keep up with what was happening to who at times. When they eventually get picked off one by one, honestly I felt like they deserved it for various actions throughout the film.
Okay, so I did really like how this shows the true claustrophobic feeling of caving in the almost pitch black. You watch as these women crawl through holes barely big enough to get through, almost running into a cavern where the bottom is far too deep to comprehend, not knowing where they're actually going with every step. It honestly does a really good job of creating a sense of fear that way. Creatures aside, this shows the true dangers of exploring caves.
Going back to these creatures, they're actually pretty cool. The theory behind them is that they've been there thousands of years and evolved to suit the dark caves; being blind and relying on their bat-like hearing. They look incredibly similar to the original look of Nosferatu, which honestly made them look terrifying. I think what makes them so scary as well is that we never really get to fully see them, only in the dark or glimpses as they're attacking the women.
The problem with these creatures is that the film takes too long to actually introduce them. A good portion of the film is the women exploring the cave and about three-quarters into it, we finally get to see a glimpse of them. Maybe if this film had thrown in a few moments of them running nearby, screeching or anything earlier, the suspense would have been built up plenty. I understand it was probably done more as a shock factor to put ourselves in the shoes of these women, but there would be a lot more enjoyment in this than watching these women bicker between themselves. It just causes a really big tonal shift.
Most of the film is kind of boring, up until we get to the creatures. Some of the fights are really brutal and admittedly the gore factor is pretty high too. The lighting was interesting as well, relying on glow sticks and flares to add greens and reds in the mix, which did make some scenes more fun to watch.
Unfortunately, those things can't really hold it up. The ending was very messy and way too hectic, especially since it was difficult to tell who was who as nobody really has any distinguishable features aside from one. It has some ridiculous twists, some of which would infuriate me if they happened to me in real life but in this, the women are just causal about it.
This isn't awful, just disappointing at times. The setting is pretty interesting and the creature designs are really the only things I'd recommend this for.
3/10
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