THE DESCENT review
I found THE DESCENT to be a pretty good horror flick. I enjoyed it. It sucked me in and I cared about most of the characters. The cinematography was excellent and the score was terrific. The acting was fairly good. I felt the director, Neil Marshall (DOG SOLDIERS) did a great job. The gore throughout was a real treat for any gorehound.
I do have a couple of problems with it though. First, I would have liked to see at least one male character with the group so I could relate more closely. However, I believe that was done for a reason. This is a story of a group of women seeking adventure and at the same time dealing with the incident of Sarah’s husband and daughter’s death. So, I could live with that. The other thing that I didn’t like was how Juno was treated. She definitely did not deserve what she got. She had nothing but the best of intentions for the group. Even though she had an affair with Paul, Sarah’s husband, she was trying to make up for it by exploring an uncharted cave system and name it after Sarah. Killing Beth was clearly an accident. I don’t know why that was made into a big deal other than to supplement the conflict between Juno and Sarah and set up the ending. I mean Juno was freaking out and full of adrenaline and was merely reacting when she stabbed Beth with a rock climber’s ax. As for leaving Beth, that was pretty shitty but what could Juno really do other than put her out of her misery. Maybe that was too much for Juno so she just left. Understandable. I wouldn’t have done it. But it’s understandable. So from that Sarah injures Juno and leaves her for dead to be attacked by incoming crawlers. I mean that’s cruel. It’s kind of smart to leave her as bait so she could escape but DAMN!! That’s inhumane.
Overall I thought it was really good. Better than what I expected. I would recommend it to horror fans.
Rating = 7.4/10
