Rating of
3/4
80%
CJP - wrote on 10/08/08
Action: 3/3 + Comedy: 0.5/2 + Good vs Evil: 1/1 + Love/Sex: 0.5/1 + Special Effects: 1/1 + Plot: 1/1 + Music: 1/1 = 8/10 or 80%.
When dealing with horror and adventure one knows that when one enters unchartered territory that is not one's own then the rules can be out of control to the point that everything goes terribly wrong. Deliverance, the Texas Chainsaw Massacre, the Blair Witch Project, and even No Country for Old Men showed what can happen when one is not prepared for what is coming, and one can seldom (if ever) stop or prepare for it.
The Descent is a running metaphor of not only the depth towards recovery after tragic loss but also the classic man against nature archetype. At the surface it is simply women uniting to overcome tragedy and that tragedy manifests in the form of an evolutionary miscue. Marshall has brought us here before. In Dog Soldiers an isolated group faces the evolutionary miscue of werewolves and more recently, in Doomsday, an isolated group must face the evolutionary miscue of a lethal virus. The miscue here is far more shocking and developed than the latter films though.
The Descent offers claustrophobia in grand doses- not only through the isolation of the group lost in an unexplored cavern, but also in the strained yet initially strong relationship between the females who find themselves not only fighting for their lives, but also dealing with situations that evoke the spectrum of human morality.
If one doesn't play the archetype game and foregoes what is really going on then one has a tense and action-filled thriller of a journey. If one realizes what is really going on then one has a deep, thought provoking, and tragic story not only of loss, but also as a reminder of how difficult redemption and forgiveness can become.
