The descent movie review
The descent movie credits:
Directed by: Neil Marshall
Written by: Neil Marshall
Cast:
Shauna Macdonald (Sarah)
Alex Reid (Beth)
Saskia Mulder (Rebecca)
Release date: 2005
Spoiler alert: some crucial elements of the movie are commented in the following review. Be warned!
My bloody rating:
The descent movie review:
A good horror movie doesn't really need to be explicit or show you tons of hemoglobin to scare the hell out of you!
You just need a solid scenario, a good cast and someone with talent to mix these ingredients to the perfection. That's exactly what Neil Marshall did with the descent!
Very often, when a studio has a great idea, another studio will try to take advantage of this new idea by producing a film with a similar story.
That's what happened with "The cave" and "The descent", both released in the summer of 2005. The similarities ends there! The descent is a great movie. The cave is not!
The descent is a dark and very scary movie. The director is using the first part of the movie to set up the story. The viewer will witness an incident that will change the life of the main character, Sarah, and her quest to move on with a group of friends, five young and beautiful women.
The group of girls then decides to take a trip into a cave, leading the way to what should be a (more) exciting adventure (than expected!).
Technically, the movie is perfect! Once the girls are underground, the tension and the claustrophobia felt be the characters are quite obvious in every frame of the movie.
Chances are that you will jump out of your seat very often, whether the girls are in danger or not!
Of course, as you should expect, the main characters are not alone there! They are trapped and followed by human-like creatures that are not so frightening (anatomically speaking).
But these creatures don't like to be disturbed by strangers, meaning that the girls will have to fight for their lives throughout the second part of the movie. You will remember your first encounter with one of them, I guarantee!
Fortunately, the director doesn't introduce weak and stupid girls like horror films lovers are (unfortunately) used to witness. The characters in the descent are strong and determine to make it out alive.
If you have the chance to own the unrated version, you will have access to an alternative ending. Both ending are a little different when it comes to the faith of the main character, but the UK version is the most satisfying one in my opinion!
Like I said in the introduction, don't expect tons of blood or violent gory scenes. Some sequences are a little tough to look at, but the main goal of the movie is to scare you to death.
It will likely fail (to kill you!) but you'll have a hard time looking behind you while watching this one! The movie is dark and filled with closeups of the characters.
You really feel like you are trapped with them in a cave! Just watch this one on a rainy night with all lights off with the volume way up! Very scary, I tell you!
The descent's director did a great job setting up a scary adventure that should make you wish you were not trapped into a cave yourself! It won't be in your top five movies of all time (maybe 50 or 100), but you'll have a good time overall with this one!
The descent movie review written by: Martin Berube
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