THE DESCENT (DVD)

Director: Neil Marshall (1st major feature film)

Starring: Shauna MacDonald, Natalie Mendoza, Alex Reid, Saskia Mulder

Let me start off by saying that I like a good horror movie now and again. What I don't completely buy into, however, are the arguments that Night of the Living Dead is a great movie because it has a layer of metaphor beneath it's schlock horror. I loved The Omen (at least the creepy original Gregory Peck Omen), and it had a dude getting his head sliced off with a plate of glass. It was not a great movie as art. It was a great bit of creepy entertainment.

The reason I'm writing about this is that The Descent seems to have some aspirations to be more than a silly horror survival tale. Nominally, I think it would be very possible to argue that this is a story of female empowerment. Now I'm 100% for feminism, but in the end, when the lone statuesque blond emerges blood-soaked from the dark caverns, I still think this is just a story about cave creatures eating hot chicks. Metaphor be damned, let's just call a spade a spade, okay? Or a hot-chick eating cave creature, a hot-chick eating cave creature as it were.

Here's our story, horror fans: A group of well toned women like adventure vacations, whitewater rafting, base jumping, you know ... maybe even some spelunking? One of the ladies (MacDonald) has lost her young daughter (or son, I can't remember, and am too lazy to research it) in a car accident. A year or so later, the group of women get together to do a little caving somewhere in the Appalachians. It'll be good for Sarah, they say. She needs to heal, they say. She needs to confront her demons by having a little adventure, they say. This is a bit of a non sequitor, but these ladies all get eaten eventually.

The group heads into the cavern and soon enough disaster befalls them. A rockfall blocks their entrance. They're trapped. Uh oh. It even turns out that the Type A personality leader of the group (Natalie Mendoza) has lied to them and led them into an unexplored cave system. She thought it would be more exciting for the women to be the first to map out the new cave. Of course in the end she gets eaten.

The girls now distrust each other (since they were lied to and all), and now have no idea how to get out. They wander down into the depths looking for another exit. One breaks a leg, but they struggle on. Then they meet the creepies, and are eaten. Except for the blond, who doesn't get eaten. She struggles through her situation and comes out alive at the other end. So, the blond? Not eaten. Every one else? Eaten.

Get it? She delved down into the depths of her psyche (the cave) and faced her monsters (the monsters) and didn't get eaten. She even confronted some of her untrustworthy confidants at the same time. She kicks some ass without bothering to take names. She is empowered to the Nth degree. I sure wouldn't want to face her in a fist fight.

Okay, horror plot aside, I should note the cinematography. Set almost entirely inside a cave, surrounded by the dark, the film did an impressive job with the visuals. Yes, much of what was on screen was probably not entirely realistic, but so what. This is a horror story. There aren't a lot of movies set entirely in caves for good reason. They've got to be hard to light. At times, we only see headlamps in the distance, and this definitely works to amp up the creepiness factor. In all honesty, the first half of the film (before they find the monsters) is much better than the second half (where they fight and are eaten by the monsters). Nothing really happens in the first half except for some caving, but there's certainly a sense of anticipation in the air. Of creepy dread anticipation, that is. Once they start getting eaten, the film is just a horror movie. But that's how it works, isn't it? The dread of the needle is often worse than the shot?

Standouts: Metaphorical spelunking into the mind of a damaged woman? Nope. Hot chicks fighting cave creatures.
Blowouts: Hot chicks fighting cave creatures.

Grade: B-