Editor’s Note: This was originally published for FANGORIA on August 4, 2006, and we’re proud to share it as part of The Gingold Files.
The Descent is proof positive that there’s nothing wrong with a timeworn horror premise that an application of good cinematic smarts can’t fix. Writer/director Neil Marshall’s follow-up to Dog Soldiers is far from the first film about a small group of people entering a confined environment and being picked off one by one by the local critters, but it stands so far above the likes of The Cave that it seems unfair to even mention them in the same context. The Descent goes back to horror basics in the best way possible, preying on primal fears of the dark as six female friends, who gather every year to take part in some sort of group adventure, decide this time to plunge together into a cave system in the Appalachian mountains.
One of the pals, Sarah (Shauna McDonald), is still recovering from the horrible deaths of her husband and daughter following one of their previous excursions, which gives Marshall the chance to open the movie with a bloody bang. Two years later, when she regroups with the rest of the gang to take the trip deep underground, the excursion serves not only as a chance to reconnect with her buds but also as a form of extreme therapy, an opportunity to put her tragic past behind her. “The worst thing that could’ve happened to you has already happened,” one of her friends tells Sarah when she threatens to freak out in the tight, spooky confines—but of course, her pal is wrong. By far worse is yet to come, thanks first to a cave-in that cuts off their one known path to the surface, and then to pale, savage humanoid beings that lurk in the blackness and see—or sense—the women as a handy food source.
The movie doesn’t waste time on explanations of what the monsters are or where they came from (no handy scientific experts in this group). They’re just there, and by the time they show up, Marshall has so effectively established the caverns as an alien setting that their presence makes complete sense. The ghastly simplicity of Paul Hyett’s makeup FX work is another plus; the creature design is unexaggerated, but rather a logical presentation of what a semihuman species that has spent generations down in the dark might look like. As the women struggle to escape their predicament and evade the beasts, the tension is ratcheted up to a level that’s rare in modern genre fare. A number of recent horror movies have been transgressive, shocking or intellectually disturbing, but few if any have been as back-to-basics scary as The Descent. Forget pushing boundaries or breaking taboo ground—you want simple, honest frights? You’ll find them here—lots of them.
What you won’t find, unfortunately, is the ending seen in the original British release, which not only rang down the curtain with a chilling final toll of doom but paid off a carefully built-up recurring visual/thematic conceit. This entirely earned, uncompromising finale has been shorn off by distributor Lionsgate for the U.S. release, which closes with a seat-jumper that served as an effective transition in the film’s initial edition, but comes off as a cheap jolt when made the actual conclusion. Beyond the irony of the company that made its fortune on the Saw films pruning an ending for being too bleak, it seems odd that an audience who have just experienced—and presumably enjoyed—90-odd minutes of skin-crawling thrills apparently can’t be trusted to appreciate a closing shot that leaves ’em shaking when they leave the theater.
But back to the good stuff, and there’s plenty in The Descent. And it’s one of Marshall’s many achievements that it grabs you, grips you and makes you gasp and hold your breath for a while before the creatures show up. Working in tandem with cinematographer Sam McCurdy and production designer Simon Bowles, Marshall eschews any attempt to turn the caves into places of wonder; these are claustrophobic chambers and tunnels that, you come to think by the film’s half-hour point, no one in their right mind would ever want to venture into. It’s dark down there, and Marshall and McCurdy shoot it with as little illumination as possible beyond what the women have brought with them, the better to immerse us in their experience. The writer/director carefully builds incident until the very fact that the friends are stuck in the caves at all becomes the source of the horror; watching a remarkably tense sequence in which they attempt to cross a yawning chasm, it’s easy to forget that you’re watching a monster movie. Even the opening above-ground shots are imbued with a foreboding sense of isolation that helps set up the chilly mood.
The final puzzle piece that holds the rest together is the ensemble of fine performances. McDonald, whose Sarah slowly eases out of her despair and into the role of heroine, and Natalie Mendoza, as the brashest of the group whose idea it is to make the trip, have the showiest parts, but Alex Reid, Saskia Mulder, MyAnna Buring and Nora-Jane Noone are equally fine, and the actresses bond onscreen into a compelling collective. As in John Carpenter’s The Thing, traditional “character arcs” and development aren’t the point; the focus is on how the protagonists interact and reveal themselves under pressure, and Marshall provides plenty of conflict among the group to add to the external tension they have to deal with. He and his actresses grace the characters with a level of humanity that leads to one of The Descent’s many achievements: It’s one of the few horror films where you really can’t stand to see anyone—even the character who becomes something of a villain—get killed.
