THE DESCENT

Reviewed by Sam Hatch

AS THIS IS PART OF A YEAR-END DISCUSSION AS OPPOSED TO A TRADITIONAL REVIEW, THERE MAY BE SPOILERS PRESENT IN THE TEXT.

About four years ago, British filmmaker Neil Marshall's low budget military werewolf film Dog Soldiers found a cult audience Stateside, and has been running steadily on the SciFi channel ever since. He returns with another low budget horror piece, centering on a group of female post-collegiate friends who reconvene every so often to indulge in bouts of extreme sports thrillseeking. One of the women (Shauna MacDonald's fragile Sarah) has suffered a tremendous personal loss, and is all but forced to join a spelunking expedition by her overly ambitious American friend Juno (Natalie Mendoza). There are a few initial character-building scenes in a cabin, but once the group delves into the underground labyrinths of the Appalachians, the script turns up the heat quickly.

It starts as a Blair Witch-style piece on one character's preparatory negligence and her outrageously callow willingness to endanger her so-called friends' lives. Sarah's sanity is called into question, as she periodically encounters hallucinations involving her deceased daughter. All of this is enough fodder for a well-made thriller, but once the women burrow deeper under the hills, they run afoul of something very disturbing and deadly. From that point on, the film runs at a breakneck pace, and manages to breathe new life into the tired Ten Little Indians/Friday the 13th template where character after character is knocked off with little to no emotional impact. Marshall's screenplay also smartly remembers that just because a new danger has been encountered, the initial danger of cave exploration itself has not been negated in any way.

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