The Descent

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Glafira Regina O I’m not a big fan of horror, but I can watch it sometimes. The film has both strong and weak points. On the strong side: good acting and an engaging plot. On the weak side: 80% of the action takes place in pitch-black darkness deep inside caves. Everything was going fine until the monsters showed up. Okay, let’s assume that some distant ancestors went underground and evolved there, losing their eyesight due to the darkness. But the film clearly shows that these creatures don’t rely solely on hearing (and not on smell either, as some scenes suggest). Supposedly blind, but somehow they can still see well enough to fight when needed. Weirdly, they don’t have proper vision, even though they have eyes and access to the surface, where they hunt, by the way. And how do they hunt blindly? Where do they get such developed musculature and the strength to climb and jump like that, without vitamin D or anything else the body needs? How do they navigate such a complex labyrinth without sight? Apart from that, only a few details were tweaked, so I wouldn’t nitpick so much. Rated 3.5/5 Stars •  Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars 06/29/25 Full Review Tamás V A bit overhyped imho. The claustrophobia is much more terrifying than its creatures. Rated 3/5 Stars •  Rated 3 out of 5 stars 06/29/25 Full Review Pete B White knuckled it the whole way. If you are claustrophobic, good luck! Rated 4.5/5 Stars •  Rated 4.5 out of 5 stars 06/20/25 Full Review John F A great little horror flick with an all-female cast. My only beef was the lighting for some of the scenes (yes, I know it's supposed to be dark in a cave) took away from the action, but its storylines and cast is really top-notch for such a small budget, and the "crawlers" are fascinating studies of evolutionary science. Personally I like the American ending better given its homage to the ending of Texas Chainsaw Massacre in which she survives but at a massive cost. Rated 4/5 Stars •  Rated 4 out of 5 stars 06/09/25 Full Review thiago s Filme fraco, o roteiro é fraco, as cenas de terror são fracas, a história é fraca, o elenco é fraco, e ninguém ajudou a melhorar o filme, os personagens são fracos, e o filme deveria ter cenas bem melhores e relevantes, para fazer o filme ser bom. Rated 0.5/5 Stars •  Rated 0.5 out of 5 stars 05/20/25 Full Review Wayne K It’s interesting that The Descent came out in 2006, because the decade was not a good time to be a horror fan, with a glut of unnecessary remakes of classic horror films and CGI laden dross that would blight the cinematic landscape. I mention this because The Descent is very much an outlier in this time period. I remember hearing a lot about it when it came was released, as I was in my last few years of high school and swore I seen it at the time. The film very much harkens back to the days when horror stories were about suspense, tension and characters you cared about and wanted to see escape whichever situations they found themselves in. The film even goes as far to have musical cues that you’ll never convince me aren’t lifted straight from John Carpenter’s The Thing. The actual monsters leads don’t even make an appearance until over halfway. The enemy until that point is a blend of hidden secrets and dark, narrow passageways. The script does a lot to differentiate the 6 principle characters, with different accents, attitudes and points of view. This is not 6 stock stereotypes doing whatever the plot needs them to do, its 6 distinct characters reacting to dangerous situations in a way that’s internally consistent with who they are as people. The film doesn’t skimp on the violence, but it’s the claustrophobia and the fear of the unknown that’s most frightening. The directing enhances the sense of loneliness and isolation the 6 are going through, and I love how the principle cast is made up entirely of women but never pigeonholes them into any stock archetypes or uses them for cheap exploitation. The crawlers have a fairly flimsy and tenuous backstory, and the ending is either eerily ambiguous or unrealistically optimistic, depending on which version you watch. All in all, The Descent is remarkably slick and efficient horror story that avoids the usual tropes of the genre in order to focus on the things that will engage and discomfort the audience, just like all great horror films should do. Rated 4/5 Stars •  Rated 4 out of 5 stars 05/04/25 Full Review Read all reviews

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