All Critics (168)
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Top Critics (30)
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Fresh (144)
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Rotten (27)
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DVD (21)
Marshall could very well be the Caravaggio of the B-movie.
This intermittently effective UK horror thriller carefully establishes the psychological relationships among the women, then squanders this calibrated and generally plausible setup with a series of crude, implausible, and scattershot horror effects.
For my money, [the] first 20 or so minutes are the best in the film. Once the real adventure gets underway in the cave, things get less interesting.
While the movie has wonderful moments of unmotivated tension that make sure we're quite ill at ease from the beginning, it's also got a few too many of the kind of cheap boo-scares that indicate a director not fully trusting his grip on you.
Do we even need men in horror films any more? They're bound to do something stupid, they almost always get killed in the end and don't look as good covered in sweat and blood.
Prepare to be scared senseless, and then, when you think you have it figured, your certainty will be shaken by scenes built to scare you even more.
Although Neil Marshall's attempt to justify the U.S. ending is admirable, the original ending is the only way out - providing a chilling bookend to a motif and suggesting what seems like cerulean-tinged peace is actually the solitary solace of madness.
Director Marshall has obviously kept his DVD player spinning for days studying all of the classics and simply taking everything he needed like a Vanilla Ice "Under Pressure"
Blank screamers, fastidiously amplified "boos," and the most confused intimations of lesbianism since High Tension
It's nasty, unpleasant and sadistic but brutally efficient and undeniably effective.
A scary gorefest underground. Not for kids.
[Writer-director Neil] Marshall makes real movies, not just schlockfests designed to sate the lusts of gore-lovers (although there is plenty of gore, too).
Where the film exceeds 'Dog Soldiers' is toward the end, as Sarah comes to grips with what it will take to survive her ordeal and gets in touch with her feral side.
Six sexy spelunkers in an underground fright fest make for keen and claustrophobic cinema.
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There are inconsistencies and frustrating ambiguities, but this is another reliable, vigorous horror experience for genre fans.
Once it gets going, it shakes you and keeps shaking you.
The Descent may not be a classic, but it's likely to remain with you for a while.
It is to the film-maker's credit that these scenes are filled with real tension and edge-of-your-seat moments.
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