The Descent

There have been quite a few subterranean terror tales out in the past year or so – Alone In The Dark, The Cave, The Cavern, and It Waits. But those set pieces are like art farms compared to the complex, deeply affecting British film, The Descent. It’s finally coming stateside in August.

The Descent is directed by Neil Marshall, whose well-received -- not by me, for the record -- werewolf flick, Dog Soldiers, had audiences wagging their tails for more. While there may be a Dog Soldiers 2 in the works, I am pleased to report that The Descent is Marshall’s next offering, and it’s a complete about-face. And completely scary. It’s been years since I had to take an ibuprofen after a movie, but my ever-tensed muscles demanded it after the relentless visual and psychological assault.

The movie starts off by introducing us to a tight-knit trio of friends: women who’ve known each other forever and who vacation together every year, each thrilling adventure topping the last. But this time, something unexpected happens. Something horrible.

Cut to one year later, another vacation on the horizon. Sarah (Shauna MacDonald) had to be swayed after what happened the year before, but here she is. Her sorrowed psyche needs to heal and this extreme vacation seems to be as good a cure as any. The core three friends are joined by three others and, under the cocksure guidance of Juno (Natalie Mendoza), a hardcore adrenaline junkie, the women get set to spelunk in an unexplored network of caves deep the in the Appalachian mountains.

When things start to go wrong – and they do, soon enough – it looks as though the ladies’ descent into darkness will last forever.

The less you know about the movie, and why it is so scary, the better.

I hesitate to even talk too much about the other characters in the movie; they all play archetypes, but they never seem at all clichéd, thanks to the tip-top level of acting.

Marshall directs with an alternately suspenseful and sadistic hand – subjecting the audience to anticipate, then witness, things that are horrifying to us at the most primal level. Being hurt and left behind by our comrades; accidental death; things that go bump in the night; and doing whatever it takes to preserve one’s own life no matter what the cost.

See The Descent on the big screen – preferably in a quiet theater without many other moviegoers – get your popcorn early, and don’t forget the Advil.

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Reviewed by Staci Layne Wilson