The Descent

[ShadowZA]

Now and then I like to kick back and watch a horror movie that is void of silliness but yet is able to scare the living daylights out of me. Well, this one did just that.

The story concerns 6 female friends who go on a spelunking journey deep within a cavern located in the Appalachian Mountains.

I found the movie experience (std definition dvd-video) to be graphic, unsettling, riveting, claustrophobic, intense, jolting and plain damn frightening with good use of directional surround noise. I also found the use of different and varied sources of lighting excellent taking into account the film location. You'll know what I mean once you see the movie.

Definitely not a family movie, nor a relaxing one.

[DelRay]

Seen it, liked it. Really scared the wife. Me too, a little. :E The ending was, well odd. Still a good movie.

[Chris D]

Whoa. I mean... WHOA. On good recommendations and reviews I rented this one from Netflix. First off, on Blu-Ray, the quality is EXCELLENT. And if you're not watching this with full-range subwoofers capable of 20Hz and even a bit below, you're missing out on some massive bass.

The movie grabs you from the beginning, right in your face. NOT a movie for the squeamish. I'm not a horror fan, but was able to tolerate this one. No doubts about it; this movie is brutal and gory. Like any other horror movie, there are gratuitous scenes of extreme blood and gore.

What I liked is that it did diverge from other horror film styles. As I said, it does have gratuitous gore, and standard scenes where you are tricked into a shocking scare when a fellow character bumps into another and says "boo". But beyond that, the cinematography is excellent, and I thought the editors specifically did an exceptional job. The movie does NOT in general do the thing of, "let's show you an obvious closeup of a weapon-like object in one scene... got it? ... now it's obvious that the character will need that object desperately in the next scene".

Many shots are subtle, showing people and objects without being obvious about it, so you're thinking, "did I just see what I think I saw?" Or, "is that thing significant?"

I started out loving the movie, then slowly let down to just enjoying it. The last 20-30 minutes were let-down, though, not up to quite the same standards of the beginning of the film. I thought the absolute end was actually kind of a cop-out. But if nothing else, what a PERFECT setup for a horror film, spelunking in deep caves. The choice to go for an all-female cast, too, works great.

Highly recommended for horror fans. For the rest of us, I'd say I'd give it a mild borderline recommendation to cinematography enthusiasts, but you'd have to be able to stand the extreme violence. I started out thinking it was going to be a 5 star movie, and it slowly let down a bit. I waffled between 3.5 and 4 stars, so I'll give it the benefit of the doubt and give it :4: out of :5:

[Nick M]

Excellent cinematography, but lots of poor acting. There were also some sideplots that they started and never fully developed (probably the fault of the editor).

Worth a rent for sure, but I don't have plans on buying it.

[NMyTree]

This is a good horror flick, without a doubt.

I enjoyed the hell out of it.

I love good Sci-Fi and Horror. This one is a keeper for the DVD collection, I bought it.

[Chris D]

Yeah, Nick, this is one that I think was worth having seen for me, but I'm not really interested in ever seeing it again.