As a bloody nightmare populated only by women and set in a deep, dark, narrow passageway-lined cave, The Descent certainly doesn’t lack for allegorical interpretations. Unfortunately, Neil Marshall’s tale of underground adventuring-gone-awry isn’t sturdy enough to support even superficial readings as a gory tract about feminism, lesbianism, or post-traumatic catharsis, with any analytic promise weakened by its characters’ featurelessness and then wholly diluted by a third act that’s light on stirring symbolism and heavy on ponderous guy-related tension between Shauna Macdonald’s grieving Sarah (who lost her hubby and daughter in a car accident one year earlier) and Natalie Mendoza’s She-Ra warrior Juno. Marshall sabotages a good deal of surprise and suspense by delivering, on two separate occasions, telling shots (one of Juno, one of a cave guidebook) that foreshadow future doom, though the Dog Soldiers director almost compensates for such ham-fistedness with a handful of expertly choreographed ‘jolt’ scares (including one filmed, Blair Witch-style, through a DV camcorder) once all subterranean hell breaks loose and his nondescript female protagonists are beset by the cavern’s carnivorous mutants. With a vengeance-driven finale that’s alternately shocking, ugly, and preposterous, The Descent gets stuck in a hole it can’t extricate itself from, yet this final misstep is ultimately no more troublesome than the overriding ordinariness of Marshall’s polished but ho-hum B-movie – essentially a more grave, and less unintentionally hilarious, version of The Cave.
Right on
Posted by: Jack | August 02, 2006 at 07:45 PM
Shame that your off-base review has to lessen the RT rating. This movie was SCARY, well-done & well deserving a higher grade than given.
Posted by: Leo | August 03, 2006 at 06:32 PM
Leo,
Why is it a shame that my review lessens the film's rating on Rotten Tomatoes? The film (as of August 3rd) has a 90% positive rating - isn't that good enough?
Rather than bringing up RT stats - which are hardly reliable barometers of whether a film is good or not - how about pointing out specific ways in which my review is "off-base." Especially since I partially agree with your main points (that it's scary and well-done)...
Posted by: Nick | August 03, 2006 at 11:54 PM
I really don't want to agree with you here, Nick..but I must. I was so psyched for this being a huge horror fan and having heard only glowing reviews..I fully expected to love it...but..I quickly realized that I wasn't being entertained at all...didn't care even a bit whether the bland characters lived or died. Really liked the creature design..but I thought that the action sequences just got tiring after a while. Not a terrible flick..but way undeserving of the credit it's getting.
Posted by: NoxinOen | August 05, 2006 at 12:11 AM
I have to agree with the critic on this one. "The Descent" has the best of intentions when it comes to delivering the goods, but there came a point in the film where I felt as though I had been jerked from one movie into an entirely different one altogether. The early developments and mid-section moments involving the exploration of the cave were immensely tense, and knowing what the third act had in store, I found myself wishing that the whole cave-dwelling carnivore aspect of the plot was somehow just an elaborate hoax. However, we are treated to a series of gore-laden kills that lack the sufficient scares needed to sustain any suspense. It's not as lethally dull as a film like "Hostel" in this respect, but it comes very close to that line. And the resolution at film's end between two of the female characters only serves to diminish what little sympathy I had built up for one of the women involved. In the end, I couldn't have cared less if they had all died; at least that would have resembled something along the lines of boldness and originality.
Posted by: David | August 05, 2006 at 12:54 AM
You need to check your facts buddy...before you review. For your information this movie was made well before "The Cave" it was released in europe way before "The Cave" was even thought of. Pleaser don't even compare the two.
Posted by: mike | August 05, 2006 at 04:59 PM
Mike,
Both The Cave and The Descent got their original domestic theatrical releases in the summer of '05, so they were probably made at roughly the same time.
Nonetheless, my comment that The Descent is a "version" of The Cave doesn't necessarily have to imply that one came before the other. As the Cambridge University Press Dictionary defines it, a version is:
"A particular form of something which varies slightly from other forms of the same thing"
And both, I think it's fair to say, are slightly varying forms of the same thing: namely, the horror movie involving underground monsters attacking cave explorers.
Posted by: Nick | August 05, 2006 at 09:49 PM
You may backtrack on your definition of version. But it is evident that you did not do your homework on this. The release of Descent pre-dates that of The Cave. I doubt you even sniffed the subplot of the evolution of Sarah. If you're going to focus on writing 5 minute reviews, then perhaps you can take a lesson from Mark Kermode, who actually studies his material rather than just eating the popcorn.
Posted by: Jim | August 08, 2006 at 11:28 AM
Um, I'm not backtracking on my definition of "version" - I'm clarifying it for those who don't understand what the word means.
And the release of The Descent doesn't predate that of The Cave - in the U.S., where I work, the former was released almost a year after the latter. But thanks for playing.
Posted by: Nick | August 08, 2006 at 11:36 AM
Don't worry Nick, your logic and use of "version" is perfectly clear for those who actually use their frontal lobes. I just saw the film, and while I think that my rating would be a tad higher (some would say you're more cynical, which I find condescending and stupid; if anything, I'm more forgiving in this particular instance, but no matter), I agree on most of the major criticisms you exhibit. Absolutely hated the first twenty minutes of the film - why such superficially blanketing characters? - but once the descent began, it definitely tapped into 90% of my deepest fears. Two thoughts rest on my mind right now: I shouted "holy fucking shit" VERY loudly in a crowded theater, and Gollum is now cute and cuddly by comparison.
Posted by: Robert Humanick | August 09, 2006 at 12:55 AM
So because they were not made at exactly the same time, means that the two movies cannot be compared? Please stop looking for reasons to bash the author, you aren't proving how smart you are on the internet, you're making yourself look dumb.
Personally this movie gave me a lot of scares, but at the end, there was nothing that really stood out as unnerving or scary. I agree with the review that a lot of the scenes were well-done, but there just wasn't that substance that made it memorable.
Posted by: Peter | August 12, 2006 at 08:44 PM