Customer Reviews:
Decent Horror-Thriller........2008-02-25
This is a little known horror film, having received a fraction of the exposure of other, bigger budget efforts. Comparisons with Dog Soldiers are only relevant in terms of the direction, not the content. Dog Soldiers is pretty much a parody of horror movies and shouldn't be taken as a serious effort of the genre.
The Descent has the advantage of being set underground, which taps into something which I imagine is pretty high on the list of human phobias (claustrophobia), and while it has just about every cliché you can think of associated with caving, etc, I think it's done pretty well. The direction is decent enough - given that the action happens underground, the lighting and scene construction is good. The introduction of the `crawlers' is a little belated, given they're supposed to provide the main antagonism in the piece, but when they do arrive, they're given good screen time and look plausible. In fact I think the whole idea is plausible - a race of adapted subterranean humans, who are voracious and feed on raw flesh...yeah!
Character-wise, unfortunately the protagonists are pretty clichéd, but I can forgive that - its an action thriller nonetheless, not an Oscar nominated drama.
All in all, I derived enough enjoyment for 4 stars here - it's not a classic horror movie by any means, but it won't disappoint in the thrills department. Give it a go!
10 reasons why The Descent sucks compared to Dog Soldiers.......2008-02-10
Warning - contains spoilers:-
1) It's set in America, has american actors - in part - and clearly is aiming in that buttock-clenchingly unsubtle way at being a 'cross-Atlantic' film. Dog Soldiers is set in Scotland.
2) Dog Soldiers has brilliant actors like Sean Pertwee and Kevin McKidd (Lucius Vorenus in Rome) and lets them actually do a bit. In The Descent, the interesting characters get killed first.
3) In the Descent the evil cannibals look like less scary versions of Gollum from LOTR and have zip reality. In Dog Soldiers they use Werewolves, which are ready established in the minds of the Viewer, and this allows you to plunge into the action.
4) In Dog Soldiers, they've got guns which go bang. In The Descent, they've got silly caving tools.
5) The Descent is humourless to the point of dour; Dog Soldiers is really funny, throughout.
6) The cannibals in The Descent are supposed to be blind and work their way around by touch, hearing and smell, but they actually managed to STAND on the girls quivering (and panting) with fear and go past them. So there guys can't tell the difference between a rock and a squlchy human under foot? Can they catch anything? There's no direct Dog Soldiers equivalent, but such a stupid thing would not happen in such a great film.
7) In Dog Soldiers it's dead simple why the soldiers are out on the moor, they're bait. In The Descent they go down the 'wrong cave' because one of the more unbelievable characters feels its important they have more of a challenge to 'bond.' Tosh.
8) In The Descent, the girls are already in trouble when the baddies appear, which feels staged. No need to start the tension on non-cannibal related potential terror themes. Also the Goblins don't show up until way too long in the film. In Dog Soldiers, you KNOW it's werewolves and it allows you to crack straight on to the action.
9) In the Descent, one of the girls was having an affair with the husband of another, said husband being killed in the same road accident that killed lead character's daughter. This leads to loopy lou abandoning the adulteress after the big fight. Really? Such inter-character tripe is avoided in Dog Soldiers by keeping most of the tension to the result of the England-Germany World Cup qualifier.
10) Most importantly, The Descent CHEATS. One character escapes, drives away, is free, but no, it was all a dream and she's in the cave with the horrids, ready to get munched. Shame on you, screenwriter. I hate it when they cheat with the whole - it was all a dream - thing. Dog Soldiers has a proper ending with Lucius Vorenus getting serious with yet another dog-breath.
The Descent is no Dog Soldiers
Brilliant horror movie.......2008-01-24
My view on what makes a good horror movie is fairly simple: does it stay with you when you leave the theatre? Really effective cinema should burn itself into your brain. I would certainly put The Descent into that dark bag. It's bloody, exciting and for me the ending was perfect. Go see it now if you love horror!
Brutal, bloody, brilliant........2008-01-07
A group of women have an adventure holiday caving. One of them takes them into a unexplored cave system. They get lost and discover they are not alone. Won't spoil it for you. Watch this film, not cheesy at all. It is awesome! The violent scenes are really blood curdling.
Great.......2007-12-11
Firstly this is not a classic. It's just one of the better horror films out of recent years. For everyone trying to compare it to other films its more like 28 days later than your usual horror with lots of action. Why people are trying to compare it to Aliens I will never know. Its more like Alien than Aliens. There is some action at the end but its not all guns blazing type of action. Its more like backed into a corner with a pickaxe.
Customer Reviews:
A HORROR FILM NOT TO BE MISSED.......2007-10-25
If nightmare inducing horror is not your bag then the less you know about The Descent the better. Geordie writer-director Neil Marshall has delivered an accomplished, well acted, out and out horror movie that comes as much of a pleasant surprise as his first major feature Dog Soldiers did back in 2002. Shot in a mere 7 weeks The Descent sees a sextet of undeniably attractive action women leaping headfirst into an Appalachian potholing adventure that goes wrong so quickly you are left wondering if any one of them will survive, let alone ever see daylight again.
There are comparisons to be drawn to Marshall's 'Soldiers of course - again the story is stark and wonderfully economic. Again there is group of six people, predominantly one sex accompanied with a lurking, ominous threat and again there are more nods to popular film culture than you probably realise. The Descent however has a sense of humour that is suitably pitch black.
Long before the cave appears we play witness to a traumatic event that underlies the plot and serves to both unite and tear apart relationships in equal measure. Mostly affected are fragile Sarah and physically strong Juno, an adrenaline junkie who leads the group further and further beneath the ground. No time is wasted in recreating the primal feel of crawling through tunnels with hard hats scraping the dust from the rocks, choking and inducing paranoia all the way as it lingers in the stale, torchlit air. It's here Marshall gets a little inventive. Playing with various different lighting techniques our heroines become colour coded through scenes via glow-sticks, flashlights and video camera. Sounds echo when visuals are briefly lost and deliciously bone crunching they are too. Events escalate quickly and the whole ride becomes what can only be described as a non-stop relentless assault on the senses that will demand repeated viewing.
The only thing that will ruin this movie for you is word of mouth, which ironically is exactly what this film will need to become commercially viable. But the less you know, the more you will enjoy it. Have fun spotting references to Carrie and Apocalypse Now by all means, but don't be fooled into thinking this is a mere standard entry into the much saturated genre-movie staple. The Descent will rank as one of the most unashamedly terrifying British films ever made. It was made by people that love good cinema, and it shows. The Descent was made before The Cave, and now has an alternate ending for new audiences.
One of the scariest films I've ever seen.......2007-09-03
'The Descent' begins when there is an accident on the way home from a white-water rafting holiday, killing (the lead character) Sarah's husband and daughter. A year later, Sarah and her five friends meet up in a wood in America to go caving, only to find out (once it is too late) that the cave they have gone down has apparently been undiscovered before, so there are no maps or guides to the exits and there is also something living down there - some kind of creatures that are believed to have evolved from humans but have adapted to live in the dark.
I'm not usually someone who gets that scared by horror films but 'The Descent' was absolutely terrifying. As a majority of the film is based in the very dark, very compact caves, it makes this film very claustrophobic and the feeling that they can't see anything around them in the thick darkness is very unnerving indeed. There's a fair amount of blood and gore but it is all necessary, not just a splatterfest that most recent horrors go for these days. The "creatures" are also very creepy, being almost human adds a bit more realism to it all. The camera-work is very impressive, taking the claustrophobic feeling to the maximum. There is one scene in particular where the characters a crawling though a crack (literally) in the rock when the entrance caves in, which is honestly the stuff nightmares are made of! This scene also proves that this is a terrifying film even before they meet the creatures living down there.
Overall this is without a doubt one of the best horror films I have seen for a long, long time (British or otherwise). If you're after a tense, exciting, shocking and scary horror film, I can't recommend anything better than this. However it may put you off going caving for life!
Not as good on a small screen.......2007-07-31
I watched this at the cinema and it scared the pants off me. Everyone was shrieking and jumping and it was great! Personally I think just being stuck in a cave was scary enough, and it was a little disappointing when suddenly there are weird mutants trying to kill them as well. Turned a believable horror into a bit of a hammer horror, but it was enjoyable none the less!
HOWEVER! Having loved it in the cinema I bought it on DVD for someone and they said it was laughable and not at all frightening, so I borrowed it and watched it again myself. Wow! I completely understood what they meant - this is definitely a film to be seen on the big screen and when viewed on a small one, all the scary bits seem to be lost and it really isn't as good. It's a great shame, but I would only recommend this film to people with huge screens and good surround sound, otherwise it just hasn't got the same effect.
Really boring.......2007-02-10
I definitely expected a much better movie than what it actually is! what an absolute dissapointment! It starts off quite good, then gets you thinking 'this will be a great movie'. There was some gore to the very beginning, then it looked like it was going to be one of those creepy movies. However i was wrong! I expected it to get better as it went along but it didnt to me and when some people got stuck inside a cave i thought the movie just got worse! Like not enough went on inside that cave to make the movie superb and its really not scary at all. You would definitely be picturing a rather dark/creepy film when people are trapped inside something with bloodthirsty creatures. Just didnt happen, and only began to become that bit better towards the end.
I wouldnt waste your money on this although this is just my opinion. You certainly wont be getting a proper horror movie by buying this though.
Brit horror at its best.......2007-02-05
The film might look unoriginal when you look at it - a group of people each getting torn apart in spectacularly gory fashion by mutants. But then you watch the film, and realise that (as extreme as this may sound) it's actually one of the finest released in ages.
A group of women decide to go caving in the American mountains, and end up in an unknown cave - or at least not completely unknown, since it's infested with cannibalistic mutants.
You may not anticipate how tense and nerve-shredding this film actually gets. The monsters might not emerge until at least the second half of the film, but this does not mean to say that the film fails to deliver tension until then. The darkness causes much tension, and the small cramped spaces (which people get stuck in) causes the heart to race.
Then there's the gore. It gets surprisingly bloody once the mutants attack, with throats being ripped out and axes going through heads galore. Fans of gore will not be disappointed here.
Flawless in every way, and something that should put the rumours that the British can't do horror to sleep.
Customer Reviews:
A HORROR FILM NOT TO BE MISSED.......2007-10-25
If nightmare inducing horror is not your bag then the less you know about The Descent the better. Geordie writer-director Neil Marshall has delivered an accomplished, well acted, out and out horror movie that comes as much of a pleasant surprise as his first major feature Dog Soldiers did back in 2002. Shot in a mere 7 weeks The Descent sees a sextet of undeniably attractive action women leaping headfirst into an Appalachian potholing adventure that goes wrong so quickly you are left wondering if any one of them will survive, let alone ever see daylight again.
There are comparisons to be drawn to Marshall's 'Soldiers of course - again the story is stark and wonderfully economic. Again there is group of six people, predominantly one sex accompanied with a lurking, ominous threat and again there are more nods to popular film culture than you probably realise. The Descent however has a sense of humour that is suitably pitch black.
Long before the cave appears we play witness to a traumatic event that underlies the plot and serves to both unite and tear apart relationships in equal measure. Mostly affected are fragile Sarah and physically strong Juno, an adrenaline junkie who leads the group further and further beneath the ground. No time is wasted in recreating the primal feel of crawling through tunnels with hard hats scraping the dust from the rocks, choking and inducing paranoia all the way as it lingers in the stale, torchlit air. It's here Marshall gets a little inventive. Playing with various different lighting techniques our heroines become colour coded through scenes via glow-sticks, flashlights and video camera. Sounds echo when visuals are briefly lost and deliciously bone crunching they are too. Events escalate quickly and the whole ride becomes what can only be described as a non-stop relentless assault on the senses that will demand repeated viewing.
The only thing that will ruin this movie for you is word of mouth, which ironically is exactly what this film will need to become commercially viable. But the less you know, the more you will enjoy it. Have fun spotting references to Carrie and Apocalypse Now by all means, but don't be fooled into thinking this is a mere standard entry into the much saturated genre-movie staple. The Descent will rank as one of the most unashamedly terrifying British films ever made. It was made by people that love good cinema, and it shows. The Descent was made before The Cave, and now has an alternate ending for new audiences.
One of the scariest films I've ever seen.......2007-09-03
'The Descent' begins when there is an accident on the way home from a white-water rafting holiday, killing (the lead character) Sarah's husband and daughter. A year later, Sarah and her five friends meet up in a wood in America to go caving, only to find out (once it is too late) that the cave they have gone down has apparently been undiscovered before, so there are no maps or guides to the exits and there is also something living down there - some kind of creatures that are believed to have evolved from humans but have adapted to live in the dark.
I'm not usually someone who gets that scared by horror films but 'The Descent' was absolutely terrifying. As a majority of the film is based in the very dark, very compact caves, it makes this film very claustrophobic and the feeling that they can't see anything around them in the thick darkness is very unnerving indeed. There's a fair amount of blood and gore but it is all necessary, not just a splatterfest that most recent horrors go for these days. The "creatures" are also very creepy, being almost human adds a bit more realism to it all. The camera-work is very impressive, taking the claustrophobic feeling to the maximum. There is one scene in particular where the characters a crawling though a crack (literally) in the rock when the entrance caves in, which is honestly the stuff nightmares are made of! This scene also proves that this is a terrifying film even before they meet the creatures living down there.
Overall this is without a doubt one of the best horror films I have seen for a long, long time (British or otherwise). If you're after a tense, exciting, shocking and scary horror film, I can't recommend anything better than this. However it may put you off going caving for life!
Not as good on a small screen.......2007-07-31
I watched this at the cinema and it scared the pants off me. Everyone was shrieking and jumping and it was great! Personally I think just being stuck in a cave was scary enough, and it was a little disappointing when suddenly there are weird mutants trying to kill them as well. Turned a believable horror into a bit of a hammer horror, but it was enjoyable none the less!
HOWEVER! Having loved it in the cinema I bought it on DVD for someone and they said it was laughable and not at all frightening, so I borrowed it and watched it again myself. Wow! I completely understood what they meant - this is definitely a film to be seen on the big screen and when viewed on a small one, all the scary bits seem to be lost and it really isn't as good. It's a great shame, but I would only recommend this film to people with huge screens and good surround sound, otherwise it just hasn't got the same effect.
Really boring.......2007-02-10
I definitely expected a much better movie than what it actually is! what an absolute dissapointment! It starts off quite good, then gets you thinking 'this will be a great movie'. There was some gore to the very beginning, then it looked like it was going to be one of those creepy movies. However i was wrong! I expected it to get better as it went along but it didnt to me and when some people got stuck inside a cave i thought the movie just got worse! Like not enough went on inside that cave to make the movie superb and its really not scary at all. You would definitely be picturing a rather dark/creepy film when people are trapped inside something with bloodthirsty creatures. Just didnt happen, and only began to become that bit better towards the end.
I wouldnt waste your money on this although this is just my opinion. You certainly wont be getting a proper horror movie by buying this though.
Brit horror at its best.......2007-02-05
The film might look unoriginal when you look at it - a group of people each getting torn apart in spectacularly gory fashion by mutants. But then you watch the film, and realise that (as extreme as this may sound) it's actually one of the finest released in ages.
A group of women decide to go caving in the American mountains, and end up in an unknown cave - or at least not completely unknown, since it's infested with cannibalistic mutants.
You may not anticipate how tense and nerve-shredding this film actually gets. The monsters might not emerge until at least the second half of the film, but this does not mean to say that the film fails to deliver tension until then. The darkness causes much tension, and the small cramped spaces (which people get stuck in) causes the heart to race.
Then there's the gore. It gets surprisingly bloody once the mutants attack, with throats being ripped out and axes going through heads galore. Fans of gore will not be disappointed here.
Flawless in every way, and something that should put the rumours that the British can't do horror to sleep.
Customer Reviews:
Very creepy.......2006-06-05
Some people seem to have missed the point of this film, complaining about the horror. It is a horror film but is done so well that when the gore finally arrives you're nerves are already shredded. The build up is tense and the creepy moments really do make you jump in your seat. Far from being empty, the characters are largely rounded, although not all are sympathetic.
Think i saw a different film to every one else.......2006-05-21
I actually saw this film last year on a plane back from mexico. i had wanted to see it at the cinema, but have no friends who hold the same interest in films as me. I was quite excited in getting to see it any way. but was wholey disappointed. The build up began well, and i liked the completely unexpected car accident scene. But i didnt grow to care for any of the characters at all, in fact was quite pleased when they began to die. Im all for gore and enjoy scarey films, but am almost always disappointed. and this film was no exception. The films gore was so over the top that it became laughable and lost the initial scareyness you got from the claustrophobic tightness of the tunnels. I've given the film 2 stars purely for the fact that the ideas were good, and if not completely for the car accident scene. If your looking for a film thats a no brainer and a bit of a giggle, then this is the film for you. If you want a seriously scarey film then i would look else where as you will be disappointed by this film.
Mountain Pick Chicks in the Cannibal Cave of Death.......2006-05-04
Neill Marshal gave British horror flicks a bite in the arm with his funny and thrilling Zulu-with-werewolves flick Dog Soldiers, but he ain't joking in The Descent. Unlike overhyped, undernourished recent local efforts like glorified TV pilot 28 Days Later, this is a real movie made by someone who knows exactly what he's doing, and who does it well. More importantly, he's not afraid to take his time to ground the story and the characters before getting to the main course. There are a couple of hokey false alarms before his heroines find themselves trapped in an unexplored cave system, but the first two thirds are a pretty good survival story in their own right, making you wonder if he really needs to give the gals company down there: big mistake, because when they finally do meet the locals, the film shifts into high gear that makes Cameron and Sigourney look like wimps. Aside from some terrific action scenes, Marshall even manages to subvert the expected it's-not-really-the-ending ending, turning it from the usually schlocky cliché into something that is genuinely haunting. Which is a shame for those of you Stateside, because that's not the ending you'll be seeing when the film opens there late Summer (apparently it's only the last minute that's been cut, but that's enough to leave you with the standard one-size-fits-all horror movie ending). Still, I suppose we should be grateful at least that Lion's Gate haven't retitled it Mountain-Pick Chicks in the Cannibal Cave of Death. Yet...
"Love Every Day" - Ho Ho Ho !.......2006-04-28
"The Descent" is one of the most disgusting "horror" movies that I have ever seen. It is a lavish gore and splatter fest as a group of tough,foul mouthed , but attractive Amazonian women (yawn, can we have our demure, kind ones back again please ?), slug it out with demonic fiends in an underground cave network in the Appalachian mountains. I don't know which film came first, this one or "The Cave" , but they're both essentially the same and both are equally bad .If you want to see nasty young women drenched in blood , chopping up monsters with knives and axes and gouging out their eyes with their bare hands, then "The Descent" is the film for you. I thought that it was a revolting film, but I reckon that there will be many young women who will watch this trash together on a "girlie night in" with their pizzas and bottles of Chardonnay. Sad. Watch a "Bollywood" film instead.
BEST BRITISH HORROR IN YEARS.......2006-04-20
The creators of Dog Soldiers have come back with what I believe is a masterpiece of a movie - The Descent.
The films plot is pretty basic - girls go cave exploring, girls get lost, girls discover monsters, girls get devoured by monsters. However, dont let this put you off, as this is unlike any horror flick I have seen.
The first half hour or so starts slow, introducing us to the characters and their friendship. Its when the girls go down to the cave when things get very interesting.
Even before the monsters appeared, I was terrified by the girls struggle through the tight narrowed caves. Being a tad claustrophobic myself, I found their journey hard to watch.
Its when the creatures make their first appearence that the film changes dramatically. We now experience tons -and I mean TONS - of gore and gresome moments.
In terms of cinematography, this film is amazing. The way the director shoots the film in this dark unpleasent place is dramatically effective, making this possibly the best technical peice of British cinema I have ever seen.
I wont give to much away, but all in all this was a very enjoyable film. See this if you love gory flicks, but also if like me you appriciate the way films are shot.
UK DVD:
- The Descent (2 Disc Special Edition) [2005]
- The Devil's Rejects - Special Edition [2005]
- The Entity [1982]
- The Eye (Collector's Edition) [2002]
- The Faculty [1999]
- The Hamiltons [2006]
- The Hammer Horror Series [1964] (REGION 1) (NTSC)
- The Host [2006] (2 -DISC EDITION)
- The Last Winter [2006]
- The Messengers [2007]
UK DVD List
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