One of the best horror films I know: thrilling, brutal, fast and unpredictable!
Some claustrophobic scary ass shittt mannnnnnn...in there..with them THINGS running around?!...you can count me out!
Yo, that was fucked up.
This is a really well made Horror film. It's got a lot of tricks up its sleeve. It's claustrophobic. It's dark. There's questionable motives and morals. And, there's meat-eating monsters. Other than that, there's nothing to be scared of.
I wouldn't say that I loved this movie but I'm scoring it high because I respect how well it does what it sets out to do. I personally was a bit turned off at how a couple of the girls turned into action heroes. They were regular killing machines. There were also too many jump scares but they were balanced by some good suspense.
The R-rated ending can be interpreted a few ways, none of which I really cared for. But this was a well acted and well directed 90 minutes.
Dude wtf.. nearly got me an heart attack. :)
Good movie though
I went to see this film when it was first released. I'd read a review that praised it and said the best way to see it was to sit at the back of the screening room. I did that and had a great time watching everyone jump, scream and be petrified for an hour and a half!
I rewatched it just now on a poor resolution satellite channel and I have to say it has held up quite well. Not great but good enough.
The frights come thick and fast once they start. It's gory with a modest budget for special effects. The pacing means you never rest on your laurels and it ends satisfyingly.
7/10
(I seem to remember the sequel being not good and a wasted opportunity. Hopefully it gets a broadcast soon and I can rewatch that for completeness)
First horror movie I watched. Imagining something behind me when I'm crawling through a tunnel whilst caving gives me the shivers
Not the first time I've watched this one but after giving it another view with fresh eyes, I have to give this one a 5 rating "Meh" at the very best. If you suffer from speluncaphobia, claustrophobia, cleithrophobia, or nyctophobia (fear of caves, enclosed spaces, being trapped/locked in, and darkness) this movie will probably really be a nerve-jangler. Watching it with fresh eyes, however, it's not so much "scary" as overdramatic and utterly ridiculous. So. Many. Holes. in the story, in the plot, in everything. None of the characters are memorable or likable...not even "Sarah" (played by Shauna Macdonald), the bereaved widow/mother. I will say, however, that my heart was moved by her performance when she came to in the hospital and discovered that her child had been killed in the auto accident. She played that part brilliantly, and - mercifully - briefly. I'm assuming the producers/directors/writers wanted to make "Juno" (played by Natalie Mendoza, whose headshot below, incidentally, is far too Photoshop'd to do her justice) the antagonist/villain but they couldn't really pull it off. She came across as a female actress trying to come across as a "tough guy" and it really didn't work. The rest of the cast were such bit-part players that I couldn't remember who was who, who did what, which went missing and how, etc etc. That's how vanilla this entire film was. The creatures were never explained, although a half-hearted sentence was thrown in (for good measure, I suppose; it really didn't say anything we hadn't already figured out by this point) and the lame explanation that was given could be easily debunked: If they were, indeed, "creature who had adapted to living in complete darkness and were totally blind" then why would they go above ground into the daylight to supposedly hunt and bring their prey/kills down into the darkness? Were these "Mole Men" or "Bat People" or what? To make it even more ludicrous, they at one point had to throw in a "Mole/Bat Female", completely with developed breasts that hung down because she - like the others - moved on all fours (hands and knees) like any other nocturnal animal, I suppose. This "mole/bat female" thing became (of course) enraged when one of her offspring attacked the humans and got killed or wounded for its troubles. And so on and so forth.... So many holes in the entire story and it isn't worth my time to sit here and explain everything away. Just suffice it to say that it wasn't a complete waste of time - it had its moments but IMO the "fear factor" was due more to the tight crawl-spaces and harrowing tunnels they had to traverse, more than the "mole people" - but just go into it realizing the plot is as thin as wet tissue paper and just as sturdy, and there's really nothing to buy into about this. Would I watch it? Yeah...if you're bored, it's not a bad way to completely waste 93 minutes. But now that I've watched it with fresh eyes, I won't bother seeing it again. And the ending is just....silly, for lack of a better word.
This is definitely a good movie to check out with some scenes that will definitely make you jump. They also give it a nice and creepy atmosphere. Obviously it was a low budget movie, so the videos quality, and sound quality could have definitely been better, but they sure did a great job with what they had to work with.
Pretty solid film. Good atmosphere, creatures were well done. Wish I would have liked the characters more but it works.
This movie made me feel like I didn't want to watch any more, in a good way. So bloody, dirty and gruesome. Haven't felt like this in a long time. Today I had the feeling that I wanted something... so dirty and pure horror. And I got it. On everything I was like Oh Fuck or Oh Shit. Because I would never do it, and seeing how it is done that you would never do, makes it so good.
A meh movie, you can't see shit in the dark, in the scenes where they fight you can't understand anything, it bores a little bit, good ending
5/10
I heard it was "the best thriller since Aliens" from more than one person, and that gave me high hopes. What I got was a mix between something almost Saw-like, Alien-like, and something I have never seen before.
The best parts of the movie had nothing do with the creatures. The revenge killing, the literal pool of blood, the accidental killings, the claustrophobiaall that was done perfectly. I just thought the cave dwellers held it all back due to their cliché and predictable nature. How many movies have you seen with monsters that only live to kill? Hundreds. Monsters in a horror movie are as predictable as Big Bird in an episode of Sesame Street. Without the monsters, the movie would have been less predictable. Anyway, the cave dwellers were nothing more than a dumber version of Orcs mixed with your standard jump-out-generic-monster.
The cinematography was great, but it didn't impress me. The plot-twist in the very end (of the Unrated Edition) is, sadly, just another cliché used in almost every movie anymore.
It was a fun movie. The upside-down killing is one of the coolest killings I have ever seen in a movie. I can't deny that this movie had its moments. But a few less clichés would have made this so much more fulfilling.
I don't have too much to say about this one, I'm going to make it short:
I think it's a good horror, based in the darkness of the caves where you can be afraid of anything, we have some strange monsters in this movie, it's particular, the only thing I would complain about it is that the darkness makes the cast too unidstinguishible from one another so it's hard to see the girls, and the fact that three of them are blonde with the same apparel, and the only one who could have been easily identifiable was the woman of asian ethnicity has different clothes.
I think they should have diversified a bit on the cast.
I don't understand why this movie has 72% rating. This was just TERRIBLE. More than half of the movie is just a boring, bad acted, set up with cheap jump scares and some ugly effects. The characters are dull and I couldn't care less even for the main one.
When the action starts and the monsters appear, it does not get better. Awful make up, bad camera work, bad acting again. They use some sped up footage to show that the monsters are fast but it is just bad, really bad.
I prayed for the movie to end (I don't like to abandon movies).
Anyway, if you can watch anything else, do it.
A little predictable in terms of plot events, for the most part, but not bad. It certainly made me feel claustrophobic, and reinforced my opinion that people who willingly go into caves are completely nuts. I had a bit of a hard time telling the women apart, too, except for Juno and Holly, due to similar sort of features and most of the movie being either flashlights or red flare lighting. The jumpscares were good, the sound design was very good (if annoying due to the jumpscares having huge spikes in sound and music usually), and the sets were great. Not a movie I'll rewatch, but not bad.
The part I don't understand is why Juno stabbing Beth in the throat by mistake was played by everyone as some sort of betrayal. It was an honest accident; you shouldn't sneak up on people in a cave full of monsters. I get Juno lying about it, but Beth being like "don't trust her"? And then Sarah stabbing Juno and leaving her to die because of it? Why?
And clearly the ending where Sarah makes it out just fine and then it turns out it was a dream and she was still in the cave isn't the canon ending, since there's a sequel. I admit, the story was just interesting enough for me to go watch that now, might as well.
Scary well before the creatures show up
Claustrophobic and intense. The scares were effective. As good as the first time I watched this.
Don’t know how many times I’ve watched this, but it never gets old.
Solidly one of my favourite horror films without any doubt!
A tight-knit trio of outdoorsy ladies invite some friends along for a weekend of alcohol and spelunking, but ultimately bite off more than they can chew in an uncharted system of North Carolina caverns. Darkness is an essential ingredient of any good horror flick, and after a chamber collapses shortly into the expedition, there's no shortage of that. The tight quarters add an appreciable element of claustrophobia to the mix, too, which really heightens the tension when a creepy tribe of pale, man-eating creatures appear and begin picking off stragglers.
It's a good recipe, with plenty of quality spooks, but the low visibility and lack of characterization for most of the supporting cast meant I was playing guess-the-victim during the hairier scenes. Still, points for proficiency and for testing a few new tricks on a tried-and-true formula.
This has two types of scary, the I'm trapped in a cave scary and monster scary. Both work great. The original UK ending is brutal, as is most of the movie.
this was the worst movie ever, don't ask me why, it was just terrible.
This movie is quite bad. It has a good start, but everything goes downhill really fast. It's not good. I don't understand why it gets such a high score everywhere
Intense. Good movie. Another reason not to go down holes...lol
Review by DeletedBlockedParent2016-02-11T11:30:18Z
it's not perfect but I think it's pretty solid for a horror movie. The film has a great grasp on tone, and the sets are amazing. Simon Bowles did a fantastic job as the production designer, and the sets they use, combined with the way they're lit, could fall almost anyone into thinking this is a real cave.
What I like about The Descent, is that it's not your typical horror movie. There's no cheesy love story going on with underdeveloped characters you care nothing about. Believe it or not, there are actually subtleties in the film. Horror movies use different tactics to scare you, and a lot of them use the same ones over and over, but I thought The Descent was pretty versatile. It's not just a movie filled with, "Boo! Ha ha! You were startled."
The cave environment brings on a feeling of claustrophobia, the lighting is perfect for a horror movie, and they have the right excuse for it to be dark. The cinematography is well done, it has a good score that helps set the tone without forcing it on you, it achieves what it set out to accomplish, and that's the most important. Again, it's not a perfect movie. Sure, a girl has a conversation after being stabbed in the throat and the characters could be a little more rounded, but I think Neil Marshall proved himself with this movie in some way. What I love about Neil Marshall, is that I know that he enjoys what he's doing.