I love The Descent. It's easily one of my ten favorite modern horror movies, and I've seen it more times than is probably healthy. It's excellently paced, atmospheric, genuinely claustrophobic, and frightening in both psychological and more visceral ways. The Descent: Part II is nothing like the first movie when it
comes to atmosphere, tone, or (unfortunately) quality. This is just a bad (and oddly bright), gross-out blood-fest that's blindly grasping at the name recognition of its predecessor. I had to struggle just to focus on the bland, annoying new characters. There's no real tension, no creativity to be found, and it doesn't even look like its related to the first movie. I've seen better sets and special effects on old Xena episodes (better writing, too). I understand that this is the work of a completely different director (the editor of the first film), but it's like he completely abandoned anything and everything that mad the first movie memorable, plopped some hilariously generic new characters into the caves with the barest story to support their existence, and then just copied parts of the first movie in the most boring and amateurish ways possible. Part II is a shoddy, unnecessary sequel if I've ever seen one, and should be skipped with impunity by even casual fans of the original. The best parts of the movie are actually the brief flashbacks to the first one, which is my way of saying you'd be much better of just watching the original again. Horror movies don't have to be masterpieces to entertain me, but I can't help but compare The Descent: Part II to its predecessor, and it doesn't compare well at all.
November 12, 2009
Top Critic
