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The Descent (2006)
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Reviews Counted:159
Fresh:134
Rotten:25
Average Rating:7.3/10
Consensus: 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.
Rated: R [See Full Rating] for strong violence/gore and language.
Runtime: 1 hr 39 mins
Genre: Action/Adventure
Theatrical Release:Aug 4, 2006 Wide
Box Office: $26,005,908
Synopsis: THE DESCENT is Neil Marshall’s hotly anticipated follow up to his 2002 hit DOG SOLDIERS. Directed by Marshall from his own script, it tells the story of an all-female caving expedition that goes... THE DESCENT is Neil Marshall’s hotly anticipated follow up to his 2002 hit DOG SOLDIERS. Directed by Marshall from his own script, it tells the story of an all-female caving expedition that goes horribly wrong, and stars Shauna Macdonald, Natalie Mendoza, Alex Reid, Saskia Mulder, Nora-Jane Noone and Myanna Buring. Set in a cave system deep in the Appalachian Mountains, Marshall describes his film as ‘DELIVERANCE goes underground’. On a daredevil caving holiday, six women friends are unexpectedly trapped underground when a rock fall blocks their exit. Searching the maze of tunnels for a way out, they find themselves hunted by a race of fearless, hungry predators, once humanoid but now monstrously adapted to live in the dark… As the others battle for their lives, Sarah (Macdonald), still recovering from a mental collapse brought on by the recent deaths of her family, is fighting for her sanity. When old secrets are revealed, the friends turn on one another, causing the group to implode. Betrayed and desperate, Sarah realizes that to make it back to the surface, she must become as savage as the creatures themselves. THE DESCENT was filmed on location in Scotland and at Pinewood Studios from December 2004 to February 2005, and was fully financed and produced by Celador Films. Celador’s Paul Smith is executive producer and Christian Colson is producer. The film reunites Marshall with DOG SOLDIERS’ director of photography, Sam McCurdy, and production designer, Simon Bowles. Celador’s previous credits include the Oscar-nominated DIRTY PRETTY THINGS. THE DESCENT movie has already had a hugely successful release both critically and commercially in the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Spain, and Italy. In September, 2005 the film took the top competition prize -- the Méliès d’Argent -- for Euro feature at Lund International Fantastic Film Festival in Sweden, and in November, Neil Marshall won Best Director and the film Best Technical Achievement (for the Editing) at the British Independent Films Awards (BIFA's) (THE DESCENT was nominated for Best Film). It has also been nominated for Best British Film, Best British Director and Best British Producer by the London Film Critics Circle (the winners are announced in February), an unheard of achievement for a genre piece. --© Lionsgate Films [More]
Starring: Shauna MacDonald, Natalie Mendoza, Alex Reid, Saskia Mulder
Starring: Shauna MacDonald, Natalie Mendoza, Alex Reid, Saskia Mulder, Nora-Jane Noone, MyAnna Buring, Oliver Milburn, Molly Kayll
Director: Neil Marshall
Director: Neil Marshall
Producer: Christian Colson
Screenwriter: Neil Marshall
Composer: David Julyan
Studio: Lions Gate Films
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Reviews for The Descent
There are inconsistencies and frustrating ambiguities, but this is another reliable, vigorous horror experience for genre fans.
...whatever qualities have made horror fans embrace The Descent are lost on me.
For my money, (The Descent) is one of the most overrated and poorly realized spook shows in a very long time.
The most interesting thing is the manner in which old individual grudges, rancor and guilt warp the women’s collective survival efforts. There is no gung-ho collective.
The Descent seems less about female empowerment than female misery. One wonders if Marshall has issues. No males suffer here, just women who, even if they survive, won't ever be the same again.
The Descent only works marginally better than last August's similar creature feature, The Cave.
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.
Incredibly, Marshall is now being talked of as the great white hope of British horror. Now that is scary.
This journey down and inwards, piercing Mother Earth but metaphorically “a descent into madness” and psyche, is not personally involving or convincing.
Neil Marshall's creepfest may see more feminist deconstruction than the original Alien, contemplation the film's unthinkingly slick surface invites but doesn't merit.
Blank screamers, fastidiously amplified "boos," and the most confused intimations of lesbianism since High Tension
Unlike the cave in the movie, the plot is certainly not uncharted, and mere technique can't overcome weakness in acting and effects.
It's never a good idea for B movies to try to evoke feeling for their monster fodder characters. It's enough if you just don't hate the people... The actors are most convincing when they're just screaming.
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.
Aside from its high concept -- instead of Snakes on a Plane, it's Chicks in a Cave (with monsters!) -- place-setting is almost all Marshall does.
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.
Marshall may not have made the deep-dish horror flick he perhaps thought he was, but he has managed to pull off a splattery last act that's all anyone could hope for.
The Descent is simply a shock-'em, shake-'em genre piece with scare scenes that, however effective, suggest cheap-shop versions of a lot we've seen before.
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