A year after losing her husband (Oliver Milburn) and daughter (Molly Kayll) in a car crash returning from a white water rafting adventure, Sarah (Shauna Macdonald), is reunited with her friends Juno (Natalie Mendoza), Beth (Alex Reid), Sam (MyAnna Buring) and Rebecca (Saskia Mulder), with newcomer Holly (Nora-Jane Noone), for a caving trip in the Appalachians. After spending their first night there in a log cabin, the women set off for what they think will be a pretty routine trek. But once they're deep inside the cave and a narrow passage behind them crumbles, they're trapped inside. And they're not alone...
Writer-director Neil Marshall's The Descent is unquestionably one of the best, and scariest, horror films of this century yet. After his breakthrough 2002 film Dog Soldiers, which I've not seen, following suggestions from his manager he consciously decided to make a horror flick with all female characters so he could explore their relationships more deeply, and because horror casts are usually mixed. Marshall also gave them different accents to further distinguish each one. Anyway, he takes just the right amount of time to establish the characters and their predicament and does that calmly enough to ensure he can whip-start your heart rate later, and his direction certainly does that for me.
All the actresses are solid, but Macdonald and Mendoza particularly give convincing and affecting performances, generating so empathy from the viewer that you want to shout at them about where they should go to escape, and their cave is stunningly realised. It was created on a soundstage at Pinewood Studios because filming in a real cave was considered too dangerous and impractical, but you'd never know that from looking at the cave; I sure didn't. Overall, this is an exceptionally suspenseful, adrenaline-pumping, resonant and relevant thrill ride. Its title is ultimately ironic, because this Descent is really, in terms of quality, an ascent.
All the actresses are solid, but Macdonald and Mendoza particularly give convincing and affecting performances, generating so empathy from the viewer that you want to shout at them about where they should go to escape, and their cave is stunningly realised. It was created on a soundstage at Pinewood Studios because filming in a real cave was considered too dangerous and impractical, but you'd never know that from looking at the cave; I sure didn't. Overall, this is an exceptionally suspenseful, adrenaline-pumping, resonant and relevant thrill ride. Its title is ultimately ironic, because this Descent is really, in terms of quality, an ascent.
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