The Descent: Neil Marshall

The first 30 or so minutes of Neil Marshall's The Descent gives the audience hope that they may be in for more than the average horror film. The film is about a group of British women who get trapped in an unmarked, unexplored Appalachian cave while spelunking. And for a while the film manages to create an effective claustrophobic atmosphere. Inspired by American horror films like The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974), The Thing (1982), and (I would argue) Alien (1979), Marshall wanted to ramp up the tension in the first act. And I would argue that he succeeded. There are three scenes that were particularly unnerving: when one woman gets trapped in a narrow passage when it begins to collapse, when the ladies have to cross a giant chasm with only a few tools, and when they are forced to reset a broken leg after one of their number survives a terrible fall. This last scene is a textbook example of how to include gore in a film without it seeming exploitative. But then the subterranean bogeymen show up and start picking them off one-by-one. From here the film becomes a mediocre slasher film. Instead of trying to maintain an atmosphere, the film becomes a series of jump scares and shock reveals that all culminate when one lady falls into pool of what I think was supposed to be blood but actually came across as a vat of spoiled strawberry jam. The creatures designs are interesting, but they lead to one of the film's biggest plot holes. If these monsters are subterranean dwellers who hunt on the outside and have since been undiscovered, why do they screech like banshees whenever they move in for the kill? These creatures have a scream that could give a howler monkey a run for its money. So assuming that it hunted above ground, wouldn't there at least be local legends of screaming monsters? And also, what kind of hunter screams and makes a ruckus before moving in for the kill? Basically, The Descent was a good film that unfortunately lost its nerve a third of the way in.

6/10