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August 04, 2006
The Descent
(out of four)
Caves are scary. Not only are they pitch-black and craggy and filled with creepy-crawlers, they seem to go endlessly ... down. If heaven is all pearly gates and pillowy clouds, as any good Sunday school student can tell you, then hell is a cave. And the deeper you go, the worse it gets. Just ask Dante.
The Descent, as the name implies, is about one such journey deep into the bowels of hell, complete with demons who, while not invincible, certainly seem plausible. The whole setup — feral subhuman foes and all — is enough to make Deliverance fans squeal in terror. Better still, The Descent manages to be every bit as intense before the monsters show up as it is once the feeding frenzy begins. Imagine, a horror film in which you actually care about the characters -- even when they are half a dozen dead-meat female hotties who might just as easily have found work posing for the first six months of a swimsuit calendar.
It's a feat made real by writer/director Neil Marshall, who savvily gives us just enough about each character's personality that we're invested in them precisely at the point that they start dying. Set in the Appalachians, the U.K.-made movie opens with the women in their element, whitewater rafting for the thrill of it — and rejoins them a year later, when, rocked by personal tragedy, they once again plan to adventurously go where no man has gone before.
Marshall's characters are compelling enough that The Descent is, quite possibly, the first "and then there were none"-style horror film in which audiences might be equally satisfied to watch them do something other than expire one by one. But it's white-knuckle territory the whole way. Marshall is not above the usual scare tactics, but he knows exactly how to play this hellish domain for maximum fear and claustrophobia.
For horror fans, the message is clear: Take hope, all ye who enter here.
[as featured in The Fort Worth Star-Telegram]
Posted by Peter Debruge on