The Descent

This is a heavy hitting horror film that successfully does what The Cave tried so desperately to accomplish and failed. The Descent does an excellent job of closing us in and giving the audience a keen awareness of the claustrophobic space these spelunkers are trapped in. The director also did a good job on the cave dwellers. Instead of going the straight-to-video route with cheap CGI computer creatures, he decided to go with poorly lit live-action monstrosities in costume.

The only draw backs to the flick were the wee attempts at a independent style through cut-backs of childhood scenes intermixed with the movie. The only problems is that these scenes didn't connect to the rest of the film near the end and felt like bits of bone stuck in a perfectly cooked fillet of fish (difficult to pick out and hard to stomach).

But the fine acting and solid story help keep the movie going at an acceptable speed and with the well placed jumpy moments, the film succeeded in its task. I must also note that the end of the film does not connect to the rest of the movie and should have been edited out.

Rating: 8 out of 10