31 Days Of Horror: Day #23 - THE DESCENT

"Hey, there's something down here..." - Holly

The Descent, (2005), Directed by Neil Marshall
Grade: A

For the rock climbers and cave explorers in this film, claustrophobia is the least of their worries.  Director Neil Marshall brilliantly channels (and yes, I will say it), the great Alfred Hitchcock in this horror film filled with unbearable suspense and terror.  While "Hitch" never made a monster movie throughout his illustrious career (unless you count The Birds as one), the filmmaking aspects of The Descent, carefully conceived, reminded this blogger somewhat of Rear Window.

The story involves a cave expedition of several young females.  They end up becoming trapped in said cave due to a tunnel collapse, and must then fight for their lives against...well, some....things.  And that's all I can say without giving too much away.

When this blogger first saw Rear Window, there was an unsettling feeling being brushed upon the audience by Hitchcock. A sense of dread, not knowing what to expect, and the final confrontation between good and evil..  All of these are present in The Descent, while leaving the viewer (and the characters), gasping for breath.

What's even more amazing is that the cave scenes in the film appear so realistic, you would not be able to tell that they are an actual set, which is also what Hitchcock did with Rear Window, and constructed a full apartment courtyard on the Paramount lot where filming took place.

There is so much going on in The Descent that makes it creepy and terrifying that it's hard to believe how simply crafted the film is. 

While one could argue that The Descent and Rear Window have nothing in common (and they ARE two totally different films), they both use encased surroundings as their means of conveying suspense.  Jimmy Stewart was confined to a wheelchair due to a broken leg and his "cave" (so to speak) is the courtyard complex outside his apartment window.  He is, in a sense, trapped.  The women in The Descent experience similar confines, but they are in an actual cave (well, a set of a cave), that limits their capabilities to seeing what is around each corner and desperately trying to find a pathway to freedom.  Like Hitchcock's movie, The Descent's main characters continually have one goal: to find out just what is going on; and with the darkness that surrounds them at every turn, the suspense becomes unbearable.

Of course, unlike Hitchcock's film, The Descent establishes itself as a true horror movie with the standard violence and blood, which one might see as a turn-off.  It shouldn't, because it's such an elegantly crafted film of unrelenting suspense and terror, and is probably one of the best horror movies of the last ten years.  



And for those interested in other work by Neil Marshall, check out his debut Dog Soldiers, which offers an original twist on the werewolf genre, WITHOUT CGI!