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The Descent Movie Review

“The noise she’s making, she’ll bring every one of those things down on her head.” - Rebecca Vernet
The Descent is a 2005 horror film directed by Neil Marshall and starring Shauna Macdonald, Natalie Mendoza, Alex Reid, Saskia Mulder, MyAnna Buring, and Nora-Jane Noone.  The film is about a group of six friends who decide to go on a cave diving expedition. Things get difficult for them when a rockfall traps them inside the cave, and they discover hostile cave monsters that rely on echolocation to stalk their prey.  This leads to chaos, backstabbing and betrayal among the six women.
Almost the whole first half of the film is literally the six girls climbing around the cave and scaling walls.  Part of me really liked this aspect of the film, and while I don’t want to say that these scenes were boring per se, another part of me thought that those scenes could get a little bit monotonous after awhile.  Now don’t get me wrong, most of these scenes were really interesting, but after awhile, it seemed to drag on for just a tad too long. I suppose there’s not really much else to do when you’re that far down in a cave for hours on end, but some of it could’ve been cut down a small bit.
One of the major strengths of this film is the way it uses suspense to its advantage.  I want to make it clear that this movie had the potential to be horrible and cheesy. The end product is one of the scariest movies I’ve seen in a long time.  It’s not just because of the monsters either. The film plays off of other fears that are more psychological, and cerebral, such as fear of entrapment, tight spaces, darkness, and loss of loved ones.
The main problem I had with this film was something that I mentioned earlier: the spelunking scenes were a little bit monotonous at times.  But in the end, this movie scared the crap out of me, which is a very rare occasion for me. If you’re a horror fan, you have to check this movie out.  It’s a great old movie that will make you want to pull the blanket up to your face just to peek over the top. It’s freaky, and if you like being scared, you need to watch this film.
Rating: R
Grade: B

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