The Descent, one of the scariest movies I've ever seen!!!

Several months ago, I purchased a DVD called The Cave, which was about a group of men who get trapped in a cave with strange creatures hunting them down. I thought the movie was okay, but not great. Then, The Descent came out. I thought this was going to be a simple rehash of The Cave, but with women in it, instead of men, and I found myself not interested in seeing it. It wasn't until I read a review by Roger Ebert, who gave this movie an enthusiastic four-star rating, which is the highest score he gives out for a film, that I found myself going, "Hmmmm." I decided to take a chance on it when the DVD came out. I'm now happy to say that this movie scared the living daylights out of me! I must've jumped at least a dozen times while watching it, not to mention screaming and yelling, "Nooooo, don't do that!" and "Watch out behind you!" I have to say that I'm not a big fan of movies with a lot of blood and gore and knife-welding maniacs. I usually prefer my "horror" movies to be subtle like in Shirley Jackson's The Haunting and Richard Matheson's Hell House. Though The Descent starts out in "subtle" mode, it's anything but during the last half. Still, I found myself totally engrossed and unable to turn away from what was happening. I found myself bonded with the characters and wanting them to survive the horrendous ordeal that they were experiencing.

The Descent deals with six rather tough outdoorsy women who decide to explore an underground cavern in the mountains of North Carolina. One of the ladies, Sarah, is still recovering from the loss of her husband and young daughter the year before in a gruesome auto accident. It's supposed to a simple expedition into a cave that's tourist friendly; but Juno, the leader of the group, has instead taken them to an unexplored cave for the risk element. Of course, the group doesn't find this out until a cave-in traps them and they begin to realize that there might not be another way out. The notch is raised again when one of ladies breaks her leg in a fall, making the search for another exit that much more difficult. With a limited number of flares and no extra batteries for the lights on their helmets, this would've been a great survival story as it was. But, no, the notch has to be raised again to keep the audience from being bored, and we're eventually introduced to the Crawlers, which are creatures from your worse nightmare. The Crawlers use sound to detect movement, and boy are these creatures hungry for some fresh meat. They begin picking off each of the ladies one by one. The thing is these are tough ladies, especially Sarah and Juno. These women aren't going down without a fight to the finish no matter how scared they are. In one scene, Juno takes on four creatures with a large ice pick and kills all of them. I wouldn't want her mad at me. The question, of course, is who will survive and who will die by the time the movie ends. This is where I got a little confused because the ending isn't what you think it is. There's still another twist to be had to leave you even more drained than you already are.

The Descent is definitely one of the scariest movies I've ever seen. It's an emotional, adrenaline-filled, roller-coaster ride that will leave you breathless and wanting more. I have to say that the characters were totally believable and had me caring about them from the beginning. I'm not familiar with any of the actresses, but they certainly did an excellent job with their performances, especially Shauna MacDonald as Sarah and Natalie Mendoza as Juno. The Crawlers were absolutely terrifying and gave me nightmares when I went to bed. I kept expecting one of them to hop on my bed during the middle of the night and to pull me out from underneath the covers. This was the first time that I'd seen anything by director, Neil Marshall, and I was really impressed with the quality of his work. I'm now a big fan of his and can't wait for his next picture to come out. The photography and stage design were so good that I thought the entire movie had actually been shot in a cave. I kept wondering how they were able to get all the cameras and lighting equipment down into these little, tiny tunnels. The movie was just perfect on so many levels. It certainly accomplished what the director set out to do which was to make a small, quality film that would scare the **** out of its audience. The extras include a behind-the-scenes documentary on the making of the movie, which runs about forty minutes, deleted and extended scenes, an interview with Neil Marshall, and two movie commentaries with the director, crew and cast. I'm now getting ready to watch it again, but this time with the commentary. Highly recommended to those who love good scares!