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    The Descent

    Reviewed by
    adamwatchesmovies@

    "The Descent" is a strong horror film that takes full advantage of its characters and setting to create a frightening nightmare. Between 2005 and 2006 we got three cave-theme horror movies and this is the one to see. The other two range from mediocre at best to so awful you’ll literally be crying in pain so there is no contest as which is the best one. Even if those films had been halfway decent though, this is a notch above most fright fests.

    This British picture directed by Neil Marshall (who also directed “Dog Soldiers”) follows six women who decide to go spelunking together. Sarah (Shaun Macdonald), Juno (Natalie Mendoza), Elizabeth (Alex Reid), Samantha (MyAnna Buring), Rebecca (Saskia Mulder) and Holly (Nora-Jane Noone) discover that there are creatures living within the maze of tunnels: carnivorous, man-eating creatures.

    The film manages to set up a cast of intelligent, relatable and realistic characters that truly feel like they're friends with just a tiny hint of underlying feelings of resentment and distrust among some. It feels genuine. You get the sense that these people have a long history of adventuring between all of them that's been shaken up by a recent tragedy and now they're getting together to patch it all up by going on an adventure. This isn’t people going into a place where they’ve got no business going (even though spelunking sounds like an awful idea to me) It’s a group of friends whose bond is being tested suddenly thrust into a situation that keeps going from bad to worse.

    With this small cast of 6 women we start getting into a nightmarish spelunking adventure. The film successfully captures the claustrophobia and adrenaline rush you would get from crawling into narrow stone passages that feel like they could collapse on you at any point. The way the shots are executed, you feel like you're right there in these narrow passage and that makes the beginning truly frightening without anything ever really going wrong. Little by little you get the feeling that something isn't quite right in this system of caves, but you can’t quite put your finger on it. You do also get to witness the reason why a group of friends would choose this type of excursion. You witness the excitement and wonder over discovering some of the really beautiful rock formations and other unexpected surprises found underground. Once again, a big key to this picture’s success is that it doesn't feel like these women are stupid for going on this adventure.

    The suspense begins to build and then, just when you think it couldn’t get any messier, it does. There are some very frightening images and then “The Descent” transforms from a vacation gone wrong to a survival horror film. Here we get more suspense (though not quite as much as we did in the beginning) and as many characters meet their deaths, the ones that remain change drastically, exposing some of the underlying aggression they had towards each other and showing the extremes people will go to in order to survive. The film gets gory and very violent. It frightens you because of the threats within the cave and because of the transformations these women go through.

    Two version of the film are available: a theatrical cut and the original "unrated" cut which is the European original ending. Although both are good the "unrated" version closes the loop on the character arcs that were established at the beginning of the film more successfully. That's the version to see. It's a very effective horror movie that does peak somewhere in the middle instead of towards the conclusion but it's got good performances, great effects, excellent camera work and a strong story with great characters. You'll have a great time being scared. (Blu-ray, February 28, 2013)

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    adamwatchesmovies@  21.11.2015 age: 26-35 2,867 reviews

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