Written by: Neil Marshal
Starring: Shauna Macdonald, Natalie Mendoza, Alex Reid
To put it mildly, Horror is a tricky genre. A Horror film has to find a way in which to scare its audience, which is complicated by the fact that different people are frightened by radically different things. You may sit down to watch Alien and find yourself needing a new pair of pants by the end of the film, while someone else watching the film may simply be grossed out and unhappy with how they spent their time. There's also the matter of the type of scared people are looking to feel when they sit down to watch a Horror film; The Babadook evokes an entirely different set of emotions to A Nightmare on Elm Street (I suppose you could ask yourself, "Do I want to be freaked out or creeped out?"). Furthermore, we have the annoying factor of aging scares in Horror films; a person may be able to watch Les Diaboliques (1955) and appreciate what that film did for the Horror genre, but not have their emotions affected by the attempted scares because they're desensitised to it in this day and age. Finally, there's the matter of tropes; there's only so many techniques and image types that can scare a person, and they can only be used so many times before they stop being terrifying.
While these factors are true for all film genres, they're particularly prevalent in Horror, which is absolutely flooded with cheap exploitation films designed to make a quick buck off of people willing to watch anything that might scare them and has a brand name. As of the writing of this review, there are a total of eleven Friday the 13th films (including one reboot and one remake), two of which are 'Final' chapters, as well as eight A Nightmare on Elm Street films (also including one reboot and one remake), with a crossover film of the two franchises. There's also six Wrong Turn movies, seven Saw films, and six Child's Play films with a seventh set for release this year. It's a sea of mediocrity.
Enter The Descent. one of my personal favourite Horror films.
*Warning: Spoilers Ahead*
There's not much that The Descent does that's particularly unique for Horror, but what sets it apart from most of the other films in its genre is the fact that it does what it does well. Scares in The Descent aren't memorable because I've never seen them before, they're memorable because it's rare to see something I've already seen two dozen times done so effectively. I'd seen more than my fair share of Horror films, good and bad, by the time I finally watched The Descent for the first time in 2015, but it still managed to make me jump out of my skin more than a few times, or send chills down my spine with the type of scares I was already familiar with. A possible villain being barely seen by a character, and as the character goes back to investigate, the villain has disappeared? Yeah, I've seen that a few too many times. What makes it work here is the environment in which the director chose to use it.
Part of what makes The Descent work is its use first of natual dangers and scares. People are frightened of the dark, heights, tight spaces, and The Descent has all three within its first act, creating an uncomfortable environment for the viewing audience before dropping the cast in hell-on-earth. We become familiar with the dark and how little we as the audience can see in to it; the director takes very good care to assure you that everything you can and can't see it his doing, and tensions rise as we see glimpses of further dangers to come. When those dangers show up, they do so in a way that works off the tension built by the previous scenes in the movie. This seems like storytelling basics, but so few Horror films execute it well because they spend so little time building tension, so when most Horror films come to a crescendo it's already as scary as it's gonna get, while The Descent merely hints at danger bit by bit until you're on the edge of your seat.
In a lot of other Horror films it's very easy to write off characters as dumb, disconnect yourself from their struggle to survive based on that idea, and spend the rest of the film laughing or rolling your eyes as idiots step in to their doom. This is not entirely the case in The Descent. While there are one or two dumb decisions made by characters, what makes this whole scenario work is how much of the initial conflict is instigated by forces beyond the control of the characters, and how most decisions can be chalked up to their very extreme survival scenario. The only poor decision we hold over the head of any character is the one initially made by Juno (Mendoza), to explore a thought-to-be uncharted cave as a bonding exercise, which is ultimately fine because we learn to dislike Juno as a character for reasons that are attached to factors that influenced Juno's decision. The only character that makes an unforgivable mistake is one that we end up hating.
What adds to the film, impeccably in my opinion, is the characterisation of Sarah (Macdonald), and the struggle that she goes through as a character. She was reluctant to come on this caving expedition in the first place, still dealing with the loss of her husband and daughter, and the film in part turns the trials she faces in these caves in to a metaphor for her emotional trauma, in a similar fashion to The Babadook or The Shallows. Sarah goes through pain and suffering, losing those that she loves because of the mistake of one of her best friends, and so her experience in the cave is one of pain and suffering, losing those that she loves because of the mistakes of one of her best friends. You're rooting for Sarah to survive, because she's been through so much, and didn't ask for any of what's happened to her. She's a character who's become defined by her grief, and you want to see her move beyond that.
This is what makes the ending of The Descent so deeply cutting. I don't want to give away details, because I hope anyone who has not seen the film and is reading this review will eventually watch the film, but writer/director Neil Marshal's choice to effectively kick you in the gut, stand you up, and kick you in the gut again, and then show you how hard it is going to be for you to stand up again. is one of the most effective negative Horror endings I've seen in recent memory. While negative endings are common in Horror films (bringing back the monster for one last scare, leaving you with the knowledge that the terror will never end), Marshal's choice to evoke something similar, but then follow it up with the weight of knowing exactly what Sarah's in for, is so effective simply because Marshal took the time to actually make you care about the characters. There's real power in the film's final moments because The Descent does so much more for its characters and therefore the audience's reaction to those characters.
The Verdict: The Descent is a very good film that works amazingly within the bounds of its genre. While it regularly uses Horror tropes, it never does so cheaply, always attempting them for maximum effect. A lot of its scares are based on threats that are close enough to universal that they should be effective for almost anyone; darkness and claustrophobia are extremely broad strokes, and are used in a way that most people who've seen a horror film are familiar with. The film is also effective due to its strong characterisation and character motivations, adding more to the film with these two factors than most other films in the genre. If you're in the mood to be scared, I highly recommend that you give this a go.
Rating: 7/10
Published March 6th, 2017
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