The Descent (2005)
Average Rating: 7.3/10
Reviews Counted: 168
Fresh: 142 | Rotten: 26
Deft direction and strong performances from its all-female cast guide The Descent, a riveting, claustrophobic horror film. In this low-budget import from Scotland, director Neil Marshall has masterfully created a spelunking nightmare, which doubles as a compelling meditation on morality, vengeance, and the depths to which we might go for survival.
Average Rating: 7/10
Critic Reviews: 33
Fresh: 25 | Rotten: 8
Deft direction and strong performances from its all-female cast guide The Descent, a riveting, claustrophobic horror film. In this low-budget import from Scotland, director Neil Marshall has masterfully created a spelunking nightmare, which doubles as a compelling meditation on morality, vengeance, and the depths to which we might go for survival.
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Average Rating: 3.3/5
User Ratings: 183,706
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Movie Info
A group of close female friends on a yearly adventure vacation find themselves trapped and hunted in a series of caves by an unknown force that lurks in the shadows in The Descent, the second horror feature from Dog Soldiers writer/director Neil Marshall. After suffering a devastating car crash one year before, Sarah (Shauna Macdonald) is lured to the States with her friend Beth (Alex Reid) to a special spelunking trip by the fearless Juno (Natalie Mendoza), who abruptly fled from the U.K. after
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Cast
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Shauna MacDonald
Sarah -
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Alex Reid
Beth -
Saskia Mulder
Rebecca -
Nora-Jane Noone
Holly -
MyAnna Buring
Sam -
Oliver Milburn
Paul -
Molly Kayll
Jessica -
Leslie Simpson
Crawler -
Justin Hackney
Crawler -
Craig Conway
Scar -
Steve Lamb
Crawler -
Sophie Trott
Crawler -
Catherine Dyson
Crawler -
Tristan Matthiae
Crawler -
Mark Cronfield
Crawler -
Julie Ellis
Crawler -
Stuart Luis
Crawler
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All Critics (168) | Top Critics (33) | Fresh (147) | Rotten (27) | DVD (21)
Marshall could very well be the Caravaggio of the B-movie.
Top CriticThis 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.
Tight shots of women desperately wriggling through worm holes or teetering on a ledge overlooking an abyss create a claustrophobic effect, one that leaves the characters gasping for air and the audience breathing shallower.
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.
Tense, gory and masterfully malevolent.
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
The ensuing carnage is ample but not gratuitous; every arterial spray and bone crack makes a point.
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.
There are inconsistencies and frustrating ambiguities, but this is another reliable, vigorous horror experience for genre fans.
The Cave done right.
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.
Audience Reviews for The Descent
Super Reviewer
Super Reviewer
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- Juno: Sam, stop poking it with a fucking stick.
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- Holly: The queen is dead. Long live...the fucking queen!
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- Sarah: What about you Holly, got a man?
- Holly: Oh, I'm a sports fuck like Juno.
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- Beth: You put in a flight-plan, right? If we don't report in they'll come looking for us.
- Rebecca: That's how it's supposed to work, except I put in a flight-plan for Boreham Caverns and this isn't Boreham Caverns, is it Juno?
- Beth: We're in the wrong fucking cave!
- Juno: Holly was right! Boreham Caverns was a tourist trap!
- Holly: Don't try and pin this fucking shit on me!
- Rebecca: This is not caving, this is an ego-trip.
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- Juno: What happened to you?
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- Juno: Sam's gonna be Doctor Van Ney in like a year's time.
- Beth: Please tell me it's longer than that.
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