Anyone seen this? It's a pretty darn good horror film. Essentially the plot is the same as the Cave's, although I understand that this was in production before the rather poop American version.

I don't want to say too much for spoilers however suffice it to say that its a pretty interesting and dark (and yes, very grizzly) take on grief. Well worth watching if you're into that sort of thing.

Just came back from The Descent, and I must say it is the best horror film I have seen in a long time. Very brutal in places but Neil Marshall's understanding of the genre is very strong. The film really taps into the mythic power of fear.

Also, the movie is just one great roller coaster ride.

I'm intrigued. Please elaborate.

Saw this last night. It's the first good scary movie I've seen in a long while, probably since "28 Days Later" or even "Scream." But besides the sudden jolts and gore that's present, there's also some phenomenal imagery that appears to have been lifted from famous paintings, as blogger Jim Emerson has noted. There's also multiple interpretations of what actually happened, as well as layers upon layers within the story. I highly enjoyed it, as I staggered out of the theater.

The ending has been "softened" for American audiences, but one can see the original UK ending on youtube, which I think was a better one.

SPOILERS AHOY!


I was rather intrigued to watch this highly regarded horror film, especially as it has an English director (who had previously made a werewolf flick), an all-female cast, and an interesting location (the caves of North Carolina - though actually Scotland, I think), but after twenty minutes I was checking the clock and eager for the killing to start lol. The trouble is that there's not one sympathetic character to be seen. The women swear all the time, smoke pot, talk incessantly about nothing at all, and quickly become very, very annoying.

Sadly, when the blood does start flowing, the film doesn't get any better. Every jump is signposted, every idea is second-hand (it actually pilfers from Apocalypse Now at one rather silly point), and every action sequence shot and edited like a rock video. Even the music is ripped off from Ennio Morricone's score for John Carpenter's The Thing. Worst of all, the cannibal creatures aren't all that scary, merely resembling taller versions of Golem from The Lord of the Rings.

Unusually and commendably for a film of this sort, the actresses aren't required to take their tops off during the quiet moments, but that's about the best I can say for it.



Actually, it's not really an all-female cast at all. The beasties are played by men, and we do get to see the hubby of one of the airheads at the very start.

I disagree. Every single character has character traits that I totally admire. Sarah's tramatic experience is "nothing at all?" Beth's compassion toward her? The love of the two sisters for each other? Even the self-serving Juno is a complex character, who, while she loses our support during the course of the film, is played with enough vulnerability and remorse in particular key sequences.

And "talking incessantly?" This film wastes very little time in its establishing shots to get started. I hardly remember the pot sequence, but it certainly didn't involve every character, if not the majority of which. And the swearing? I went spelunking once with a Christian group, hated it, and found myself swearing too. I didn't have it nearly as bad as these characters did (altho my army pants split down the middle, while standing on rocks with underground rapids rushing beneath me--yeah, it was bad).

I had high expectations for the film, and was let down. I don't think it is nearly as good as 28 Days Later. I think the acting was fine, and I didn't mind the scenes trying to set up sympathy for the characters. Maybe there were too many of them, as I had a hard time maintaining an interest in them all. And in the dark of the cave, it was hard to tell them apart sometimes.



I agree that every jump was signposted, but I still jumped (and, embarrassingly, screamed like a little girl) almost every time. So because I went to a film knowing that part of the entertainment of it is to make me jump, I'd say it did pull that off, and in a much more interesting film (story, acting, location) than other horror films. However, not only were the jumps signposted, so was most of the story. Ten minutes into the film, my friends and I huddled and we all knew that Juno had been sleeping with Sarah's husband, and that they would be the last two left in the cave, and that Sarah would be the only one to live, and even that Holly would be the first one to go). Maybe that is part of the fun of horror films, to guess who goes first and who makes it. But it wouldn't be bad to be wrong, to be surprised by the story as well as the choreographed jumps.

I was very annoyed at the attack scenes. The camera work was so violent and thrashing that I could never tell which character was thrashing at which. Was the woman kicking the creature? Whose neck did that thing just bite? What is going on? Only thing to do is to wait for it to end and count the dead.

The audience I saw it with was fun. When we first see the creatures, one said in a Gollum-imitation voice, "Smeagol." When Sarah finds Beth still alive, and per Beth's request whacks her with a rock to put her out of misery, someone said, "I'm not dead yet." And, of course, people were turning around to look at who it was that kept screaming like a little girl, laughing and pointing. I took revenge on my friends, however, but picking up the bag of popcorn just before one scare scene, knowing that my jump would throw popcorn all over them. It worked.

The Invisible Man's points are reasonably valid -- but I still have to ask myself: would I rather watch an imperfect low-budget indie like this (which shoots high and largely succeeds) or an imperfect high-budget studio flick like Superman Returns (which shoots for the middle and still misses)? I go for the former.

Also, I'm not sure what's necessary to be a "sympathetic" character in this context -- The women swear no more than I would expect them to (not "all the time"), some of them "smoke pot" in one scene, and, like most people, "talk incessantly about nothing at all" except that which interests them. Should the heroines have all been A&F forum members, perhaps? I daresay that might also "quickly become very, very annoying" -- except to us, of course.

My commentary on the film went up at Looking Closer yesterday.

Just came back from seeing this horror movie. Greg. Liked your review. I kept thinking about it while I was watching the movie--especially, your question: "Is defeating the enemy worth becoming like the enemy?" which of course the scene at the end in which Sarah, covered in blood scrapes and crawls out of the skeletal cave seemed to have the idea that she was trying to escape the depths to which the human heart could sink. Should that not be the way we apprehend how far the wickedness of our hearts can descend?

Someone mentioned that the creatures were all played by men, but there was a scene in which a female plays one of the creatures. In that scene, Sarah just killed her "husband" and she tries to seek venegence on her for his death.

A bump for Christian.

To be honest, I could have put Blood Diamond or Thank You For Smoking in this spot too, but given the state of modern horror cinema, I think this film needs to be recognized as something of a gem. It was also a really good filmgoing experience for me with my friend.

What I liked about this film is the ambiguities of the film. Also, the scares that aren't entirely dependent on blood and gore (though there is that too incase someone bothered by that is interested). It makes me want to check out Marshall's first film, Dog Soldiers.

Also, Christian, do some reading about/check out the alternate ending and such which is apparently available on the DVD.

Argghh! I didn't notice an alternate ending among the DVD supplements. Guess I'll have to check it out again.

(I did not care for the film's final shot. At all.)

When I first finished The Descent, I felt distinctly unimpressed. The jumps may have been obvious to some, but I'm extremely susceptible to jump scenes, so I spent most of the film irritatedly (actual word?) hiding behind a blanket.

It made me think, though, which is always the definition of a valuable film. I liked it more and more as I thought about how often [spoiler]the women killed each other, whether by accident or revenge (a revenge often based on a misunderstanding of the original murder. The movie could easily have been a simplistic women vs. evil monsters tale, so the human-on-human murders were almost wistful.[/spoiler].

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I just saw the original British version (it was what was available on the DVD stands here in Bolivia). The original ending scores an 11 on the creep factor. I think that any other ending would seriously diminish the effect of the film.

I just watched this again with a friend who is really into climbing and caving. He loved that aspect of it, but was turned off by all the gore. Something I noticed this time around was the soundtrack. The score for this movie is absolutely gorgeous. Perhaps worth a buy, and the only two cinematic scores I own are Donnie Darko and Requiem for a Dream.

edit: It's on emusic!. But it's twenty tracks long. That pretty much wipes out my month....

Isn't the original British ending what we see on our DVDs here, and the happier, American ending is offered as an alternate?

I know I really like the ending that I saw, which ends with mother facing baby in something close to hell.... I wouldn't change that.

Yeah, that's the one I saw. I wonder if the "American" ending was just on the cinema version, and they defaulted to the international ending for the DVD's....

Hmmmm. I'm not sure if that's the same ending I saw (Brit here). Definitely hellish, but I can't remember a baby... may have to pay this a second visit & refresh my entirely unreliable memory.