The Descent (Neil Marshall, 2005)

Trapped, terrified, and then it gets even worse…

The Descent is a fantastic and fun horror movie — and the full extent of the film’s horror elements are not even revealed until more than halfway through.

A group of six female friends meet up in the Appalachian Mountains for an adventure-filled vacation exploring a well-known cave system known as the Boreham Caverns (which doesn’t exist in real life — although there is a Boreham Caverns in the UK #TheMoreYouKnow).

Sure, spelunking might not be everyone’s cup of tea, but these women are weekend warriors through and through. A year previous, for example, three of them — Sarah, Beth, and Juno — went whitewater rafting together. The trip ended in tragedy, however, when Sarah’s husband and daughter were killed in a car crash.

Modern horror films are rife with protagonists suffering from grief, but The Descent does not center the loss and its resulting emotional toil. Rather, it is used merely to weaken the otherwise capable Sarah and add depth and complexity to her character and others. (It’s implied early on that Juno had an affair with Sarah’s husband and is equally distraught — and this wrinkle inevitably leads to further conflict down the line.)

Juno leads the team — which also includes the punctilious outdoorswoman Sam, her sister Rebecca, and the overconfident-to-the-point-of-reckless Holly — as they rappel into the cave system.

Soon enough, though, things start to go sideways. A cave-in traps the group miles underground, at which point Juno admits they’re not actually in the Boreham Caverns at all, but rather a heretofore unexplored cave system.

From this point on, the film becomes a claustrophobic horror survival tale as the group do their best to avoid infighting and instead focus on getting out alive. There are tense moments of quiet action and immense physical tension as the group must negotiate obstacles, as well as an ever-growing sense of dread that they might not ever escape: it’s understood that no-one has ever explored these caves before, and yet they find evidence that others were down here decades before — so presumably they never got out, which means it’s unlikely these women will either.

As the ordeal persists, the girls grow increasingly exhausted, injuries are suffered, and — as hopes of escape grow evermore slim — everyone becomes more and more scared.

And then The Descent flips the script, ups the ante, pulls the proverbial rug out from under everything, and reveals itself to be a wholly different kind of horror movie after all.

The girls are not alone down here. There’s a creepy humanoid monster lurking down here that can scramble up walls, across ceilings, and has a heightened sense of hearing to better navigate the darkness and hunt its prey.

Greater horror and bloody violence ensue.

The Descent is a wonderful film and everything about it is meticulously crafted. The script does a good job of establishing the different characters, the roles they play, and the dynamics between them.

The direction and the production design in particular is exemplary. Long before the cannibalistic creatures are revealed, the claustrophobic terror is palpable. As the movie progresses, it becomes ever more heightened: aided in no small part by the incredible cave sets, the dominant red lights, then green lights, then bitter darkness.

It is a fantastic thrill ride throughout — an utterly unique breed of action survival horror thriller.

The Descent is lean, mean, and laser focused on its objective: to share the shit out of you.

Bonus recommendation: If you enjoy subterranean spookiness, check out When Darkness Loves Us by Elizabeth Engstrom.