The Descent (2005) Dir: Neil Marshall
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Neil Marshall's 2005 cave horror has been on my watchlist for a long time. It's often talked about as one of the best horrors of the 00's, and it has some pretty solid ratings. Despite wanting to watch it, I deliberately didn't look up much about it prior to watching, so that I'd get a fresh experience.
Firstly, I found it pretty refreshing to see a horror film that not only had a female lead, but an almost entirely female cast, whose characters weren't just strong, but pretty much all got along. I know it might seem like a strange thing to point out, but it's almost never the case in other films.
There was one terrible shot, which used pretty dated CGI, but aside from that, I absolutely loved the visuals honestly. For a film set almost entirely in a dark cave system, I thought it looked very good. The use of red and green lighting throughout the film was really effective at both providing actual light for many of the scenes, as well as creating some really interesting shots.
As far as how scary the film was, I'd say it reached the moderate mark. There was a really good early jump scare, which set the tone nicely for what was to come, but not all the jump scares were so effective. The film combined the natural fears that come with tight underground caves, with the far more fantastical, but equally terrifying, fears of what could be within them.
The film used tension well to raise anxiety levels in the audience, but, if I could've changed one thing, I'd have shown less of the creatures.other than that, it was an incredibly claustrophobic, uncomfortable and thrilling viewing experience.
The story was simple enough on the surface, but it did have a few strands that ran deeper, and improved both the general characterisation and emotional core of the film. I enjoyed that a lot of the film focused on the caving aspect of the story, with the creature feature side of the film coming later.
There was one kind of jarring storyline twist that I wasn't so keen on, but that aside, it was decent. Something I really did love was the underlying theme of death and rebirth, which was backed up by some phenomenal imagery, and joined the two narrative arcs together very smoothly.
Shauna Macdonald truly rocked in the second half of the film, especially the final twenty minutes, when she went full final girl mode. Before that, while she was adequate, she wasn't to the awesome levels she'd reach later on.
Natalie Mendoza really stood out among the rest of the cast, be it for her effective use of body language, or the way she interacted with her co-stars. I found her very compelling, particularly in the second half of the film, which, like Macdonald, saw her character really come to life.
Honestly, I was pretty impressed with the whole supporting cast, but for brevity's sake, I'll list the remaining notables as follows; Alex Reid, MyAnna Buring, Saskia Mulder and Nora-Jane Noone.
Overall, I'm really glad I finally got around to watching this one. It reminded me of 'The Cave', but this was far superior, in my opinion. I think this film does really well to establish and maintain an underlying tension throughout, and although not every scare hit the same, I thought it was a really strong horror film.
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