The Descent (Marshall, 2005)

****
In a time when good, solid horror cinema is hard to come by, films like The Descent leave me with hope for the future of the genre. The Descent is Neil Marshall’s highly anticipated followup to his 2002 cult hit Dog Soldiers. It’s a violent, claustrophobic, mind-warping, hide-behind-your-popcorn, scare-a-minute gore-fest of dizzyingly frightening magnitude.

Six women reunite for the first time after Sarah’s (Shauna Macdonald) husband and daughter are killed in a tragic accident. Juno (Natalie Mendoza) has gathered them all in the mountains for a spelunking expedition. Once inside the cave, the tunnel collapses and the women are left with no way out in an uncharted cavern. What’s more, there’s a whole slew of flesh-eating creatures called “crawlers” inhabiting the cave. As the friends try to survive, they begin to turn on one another, and Sarah struggles to keep her sanity.

The Descent has everything a successful horror flick needs – a feeling of closeness, of being trapped and isolated from help; a struggle to both stay alive and to stay together; terrifying creatures that are revolting and hideous, and yet disturbingly human; and last, but most importantly, an R-rating.

The distribution of R-rated films has slowed to a crawl in today’s Hollywood. Companies striving for the teenage market has resulted in a vast majority of horror and thriller films getting stuck with the limitations of a PG-13 rating. This makes for hollow, clumsy filmmaking.

Films like The Descent, a horror film with no boundaries, but with a filmmaker who knows how to utilize an appropriate amount of violence, gore and jumps, is a fantastic thing for horror fans.

The Descent is absurdly intense for the get-go. Even before the crawlers are introduced (in one of the most frightening images in the film), I was a mess. Marshall knows where to place the camera, where to situate the actors on the screen, how to utilize the audience’s reliance on horror clichés, to keep you good and terrified through the entirety of the film, even when there are no creatures on the screen.

There’s nothing worse than horror without substance, but the film doesn’t use its scares to carry it through. The Descent has an unexpected depth to it. However, I would have appreciated a little more development with the characters. I really felt like every character who wasn’t Sarah or Juno was completely expendable (and they are – oh, how very expendable they are).

The Descent sets out to do one simple thing, and that’s to cause the collective crapping of the audience’s pants. And though I didn’t soil myself (for which I’m very proud), I was scared witless by this film, and I consider it to be the most fear-provoking film I’ve seen in a very long time.

Horror has made its frighteningly glorious comeback in the form of The Descent.