I goofed back in 2013, when I first wrote about The Descent, by calling it a Guilty Pleasure. The film did well at the box office, and it is listed as “85% Fresh” on Rotten Tomatoes. No guilt here, don’cha know!
Okay, this is one scary underground chick flick, the cast comprised of six women. Tell the truth, it’s actually two films, given that the creatively titled The Descent: Part Two, though released four years later, picks up right where The Descent leaves off (though with a few guys joining in the carnage).
I had never heard of The Descent until last year, when I did some research for The Cave, one of my subterranean favorites. (See my post, Plumbing the Depths.) Both films debuted in 2005, and almost unanimously the British-made The Descent received a big nod over the other. That made it a must-see for me. (Bargain-hunter’s tip: I found The Descent, parts one and two, and Cabin Fever, also parts one and two, in a four-pack special from Amazon for about twelve bucks.)
So with spoiler alerts in place, here’s the deal: the story opens with three women on a rafting expedition, led by jock Juno. The husband and daughter of Sarah, one of the other women, await them on the bank, and we pick up on the tension between Sarah and Juno, who apparently has jumped hubby’s bones a few times. As Sarah confronts hubby in the car there is an accident, and both he and the daughter are killed.
“A bit claustrophobic, no?”
A year later these same three women reunite with three others in the Appalachians to go on a caving expedition. Why Sarah and Juno are still talking is beyond me, but whatever. They share a few “I am woman, hear me roar” moments, and then, instead of descending into “approved” caverns, Juno leads them into a little-explored cave system. She even throws away the map.
The film grows increasingly claustrophobic as they squeeze through tight passages and make some interesting discoveries, but to be honest, for the first half of the film I felt like I had tuned in to a Discovery Channel special on spelunking. That was about when the first of the Crawlers appeared.
We only get a fleeting glimpse of the first Crawler, but soon they seem to be everywhere. From this point forward, hold on to your chair and try not to lose your lunch as these blind, carnivorous, humanoid creatures—they have bodies like Gollum and faces like the Uruk-Hai—kill one woman after another in the most disgusting of ways. The Sarah/Juno tension resurfaces as, first, Juno accidentally stabs her friend Beth when she believes that she’s being attacked, and then leaves her to die in an attempt to save her own butt. Sarah later finds the nearly dead Beth, who begs to be put out of her misery. Sarah obliges with a large rock.
This Crawler would enjoy having you for dinner.
By the time Sarah and Juno reunite, they’re the only ones left. After kicking the crap out of some Crawlers, Sarah confronts Juno regarding Beth. They fight, Sarah injures Juno (they’re both pretty messed up by this time), and in a “what goes around comes around” moment Sarah abandons Juno just as more Crawlers bear down on her.
This is interesting: the film had alternate endings, an adjustment being made for its theatrical release in the U.S. Sarah frantically races through the tunnels until she finds a way out. She climbs into one of their vehicles and tears ass down the road. Stopping for a minute to barf, she is nearly hit by a truck. She then glances toward the passenger seat and shrieks as she sees the bloodied Juno sitting there. That was the U.S. ending. Too typical, and not believable, if you ask me.
But the DVD release restored the original ending, which worked well. Sarah wakes up after seeing Juno and finds herself still in the cavern. She’s hallucinating as she looks at the light from a torch, thinking it’s the candles on a birthday cake for her dead daughter, whom she also sees. The camera pans out; the cries of the Crawlers grow louder. End of story.
FEAR RUNS DEEP. REVENGE RUNS DEEPER.
So why make Part 2? Well, it had to do with the fact that The Descent grossed a load of money, so of course a sequel had to happen. Sarah apparently survived all of the Crawlers and got out for real. But the local lawman wants to know where the other five girls are, especially since one of them—Juno—was the daughter of a prominent person. Now a suspect, the traumatized Sarah is forced to lead another expedition back into the cavern. Oh, the poor woman!
I won’t get into great detail here. Suffice to say that the body count grows, there is more solid, claustrophobic terror, and also a shocking surprise in the depths that I won’t reveal here. The ending? Well, to be honest, this was arguably the most disappointing scene for me in the two movies combined. But, you be the judge. In any case, the sequel did not do nearly as well as the first film, so it doesn’t look like we’ll be running into more Crawlers anytime soon.
Still, The Descent will satisfy horror fans on many levels (pun intended) and is well worth the 100 minutes of run time—or three+ hours, if you watch them both.