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The movie starts out as three women have a traumatic experience in a car accident and deiced to take a trip with three other women to a underground cave. After they get screwed over by the leader of the group and getting stuck in the cave after a cave in they have to find a way out. They soon run into vampire like creatures they make their escape even more diffcult.

The main thing I like to say about this movie is ITS NOT THE END ALL OF HORROR MOVIES AND NOT THE BEST IN DECADES. Sorry I had to put that in caps but damn I'm getting tired of hearing how great it is. :teddyr: While its better than the recent crop of horror/remake movies its not "all that".

As a Horror/Escapist/Monster/Gory film its solid in all it areas. The characters are throw away expect the two main women. The monsters are cool but hardly a threat. They go down pretty easy when the girls get into a fights with them. It was cool to see a all women cast but it didn't really add much to the film.

The ending was a bit of a surprise and I did like it.

Even with all the negative things I said it is a enjoyable flick. Its not going blow away any of the real hardcore horror fans (I suspect all the craze for this film is just from casual horror/movie fans). I do reccomend it for a rent but can't see anyone getting this for a purchase or anyone raving about this years from now.

I had avoided this after being burned by "The Cave."  Maybe I should give it a try.

I have seen the "The Cave" and its no comparsion. "Descent" had a more feeling of been trapped and monster where much better.

Of course I picked the painfully bad one, with all the cliches and so little in the realm of original ideas that I was bored 30 minutes into it.  I put "Descent" on my list, though it is behind a few other titles.  Thanks again for the heads up.

Anyone catch that other ultra cheap underground terror film - The Cavern? If you didn't like The Cave, it will probably do nothing for you, aside from inducing nausea or an urge to kill...or both. Plus, it has a rather distasteful ending.

I had forgotten that The Descent was now out on DVD. After hearing so much about it for so long, I feel compelled to add it to the Netflix queue asap.

One more thing I liked to add about the flim: It did have a old-school horror vibe. Theirs no MTV style editing camera etc. and little to no CGI.It is rated R which is a automatic plus for horror movie nowdays.

I saw it a couple of weeks ago on DVD and well, it doesn't live up to the hype. It takes forever to get going, and it delights in startling the audience. There are forever things jumping unexpectedly out of the dark, or people falling in holes, or creature dangling from the ceiling. If you are quite jumpy (as I am), this gets to you.

That being said, it is still a very enjoyable film. It is quite atmospheric, and the whole claustrophobic experience is very well done. The group dynamics are also interesting. The tensions between the two main characters are as much of a threat to survival, as the creatures themselves.

Definitely worth viewing.

I thought it was quite solid, though not like the best horror film ever or anything.  One thing I will say is it plays out much better on much larger screens.  They have a lot of shots early on that build tension and atmosphere that will have like one spot of light where a character is crawling through a little hole and the rest is solid blackness.  It just doesn't work as well on the small screen.

Also, the killing and action scenes (which are deliberately hard to follow) are even more confusing on a small screen. 

I'd still give the film an 8/10 though.

The thing is about the movie it was overhyped beyond belief. Not just from the media but from people. I looked at some reviews from Netflix and I felt like saying "Do you people watch movies?". I'm not trying to be a horror movie snob whos seen it all (far from the truth) but I couldn't understand the overwhelming craze over it. Better than "Hostel" or "Saw" flims but I just don't get it.

Wha? They'res all sorts of MTV style shaky cam when the creatures show up, so much so that it's hard to tell what's going on with the "action". It's a typical tactic used by low budget directors to keep the eye away from effects that might not stand up to close scrutiny, and on top of that makes your average actor seem like a world class ass kicker. We must have seen 2 different movies.

But I enjoyed it nonetheless.

Well when they were fighting I could understand. It is a horror movie not a fighting type movie. For some reason I thought it was done well compared to other movies.

Actually, not to give anything away, but there are actually two endings to the film. There is the British ending, which is darker, and the American ending, which is not quite so dark.

And if you liked this one, you may also like the director's/writer's "Dog Soldiers," as they were both done by the same man, Neil Marshall.

I've been wanting to pick that up for quite a while.  Thanks for the heads-up on it not living up to the hype;  when I eventually get it I'll try to cut it some slack.  And I still want to get The Cave, no matter how many people say it's not any good, the trailer was awesome!  It can't be that bad...can it?

I just watched this movie, having never heard of it...and had NO idea what it was about.  Yep I was quite suprised, the setting was very eerie and it preyed on our worst fears - the dark.

The movie was good, it was actually SCARY. The creatures were scary and while they were bat-like it had a very zombie like feel. Except they move much faster.<s>  The only thing i didn't get was if they didn't rely on smell or sight how they could tell one of them apart from one of the women ...since they are some sort of mutant of a human but nonetheless have the same body size and shape. Anyhow...

The downer for me was the ending, mostly because it was an odd timing thing. I would have been satisified with a number of endings, including sarah waking up covered in blood and having gone into some mad fit of hallucinations and prescription drugs, imagined the whole thing and killed all her friends herself..lol  The whole storyline with her daughter dying in the beginning really didn't tie in well enough, it seemed to be illustrating the idea of friends sticking with eachother i guess and not leaving eachother behind. I dunno..just gimmie mutants and a dark cave and that's all I need.  Anyone else not like the ending? I didn't hate it, I just...again...think that it was a weird way to end it and left too many questions

A lot of gross-out scenes, and true claustrophobia. I knew what was coming in some scenes but i was still gripping my pillow, truly folks i don't scare easy but i have to admit movies that take place in the DARK scare me.  Having just finished watching the film i came on to see if anyone had already started a topic on this movie.

Something i think that most of the badmovies readers would enjoy, so grab the popcorn. Yeah, it's worth renting. Btw, how did I miss this in theaters?
:thumbup:

Susan I agree with the ending. It took me by surprise what she did to her"friend" and I liked it but your right they tried to tie in with the begining which at that point was like why? It was too little too late.

Rich.



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What she did to her friend actually seemed believable, kind of th whole "screw you for not being a true friend". The ending part which really bothered me was the fact that she woke up at the end, and she was covered in blood. Presumably the scene where she crawled out of the bloodpit and all you hear are screams in the back. Obvciously it's not meant to have a happy ending. I just get confused when any movie suddenly wakes up and what you saw was just a dream.

Which led me to question:
A. If she did dream the ending and they were really being attacked by creatures, why dream that she left her friend Juno for the creepies to devour? I guess maybe she blamed her for them even being there in the first place...but still.
B. Were the creatures really there?
C. Did she really kill her friends and maybe go cuckoo? After all, wasn't she the one who first saw the creature? There was also a moment in the cabin that showed her taking some prescription meds and the camera seemed to hold for a moment on the bottle. In the end we hear the creatures..but do we? We also see her dead daughter..maybe it's all in her head.

I mean, she's having a hallucination when she wakes up that she's sitting with her daughter in front of a birthday cake blowing out the candles. Then the movie abruptly ends. That left me with way too many questions about everything I had just seen and what was really going on down there. Makes me want to watch it again. She was the only one who went rambo, putting her friend out of her misery, killing a mutant child and lingering in the moment..then later killing the mother.  I guess that would flip the sanity switch in anyone, but after dreaming she escapes why just wake up and sit there and succum to insanity? I'd still be trying to get the hel outta there

Well, the freaks come out at night

Susan ,I think the creatures where really there. Due to the fact that her friend was fighting the creatures and some of the other girls getting killed in the presence of the others besides the drugged up lady  :teddyr:

Besides why would her friend at the end team up with her to get out? She saw the monsters kill the other girls.

With the meds  I think it was to have the others doubt her at first when she started hearing noises in the cave and have some tension between the group.

Also BoyScoutKevin said theirs a different ending to the movie in the British version. It might make more sense. I didn't notice in the special features.

BoyScout, can you possibly post it if you have seen the British version ending?

Well what i mean is, what if she imagined the creatures were the murderers when it was the monster inside her? The rage of losing a daughter mixed with the claustrophibia of deep dark caves and being trapped with friends who...once again...are kinda responsible for ruining her life. Before they went into the cave the one friend was making a point to tell everyone what could happen in there from seeing things to having oral and visual hallucinations. She may have just gone completely insane.

Or again...what if she's in purgatory or hell? lol  THAT is why I hate dream sequences in movies, it leaves too many what if's

I see now. Interesting take on it. Never really thought about it like that.  Now I feel like going back and listening to commentary track for clues.

Saw THE DECENT on the big screen a last summer. It was a good, but not great like some have mentioned. Perhaps the best of the year. Was surprised at who survived and everything.

 :thumbup: :thumbup: (7 out of 10 Stars) Better than most.

SPOILERS!!!









In the version I saw (Belgium, so presumably UK), there is the 'escape' scene, with Sarah then suddenly hallucinating and then seeing her daughter with the birthday cake. Then we see her suddenly sitting still in the cave in the dark, in the hole she fell in, with no daylight whatsoever. Roll end credits.

Thanks AlexB. Its almost the same ending as our version ends with the daughter and birthday cake.

"Which led me to question:
A. If she did dream the ending and they were really being attacked by creatures, why dream that she left her friend Juno for the creepies to devour? I guess maybe she blamed her for them even being there in the first place...but still.
B. Were the creatures really there?
C. Did she really kill her friends and maybe go cuckoo? After all, wasn't she the one who first saw the creature? There was also a moment in the cabin that showed her taking some prescription meds and the camera seemed to hold for a moment on the bottle. In the end we hear the creatures..but do we? We also see her dead daughter..maybe it's all in her head."

the creatures were real and the fight with the creatures did happen. if you notice the necklace that she is holding with the pick-axe is the necklace that the girl who juno stabbed in throat gave to her which before that was around juno's neck and the girl ripped it off when she fell down. that necklace was given to juno by the other chicks husband cause they were having an affair, the chick stabs juno in the leg and leaves her for the creatures as a way of saying " you were screwing around wiht my husband and you lied to my face pretending to be my best friend so take this b***h" not to mention she wasnt in a very good mood(or state of mind for that matter) and mentally and physically tired and frustrated to put simply she was going mad so she did that in revenge. and also i guess to top it off was that she led them in there in the first place.

as she stabbed juno and ran away she fell down that hole ( where she grabbed on but slipped down) when she hit the floor she became unconcious though the camera doesnt show her get knocked out or let the viewer be aware that she is she gets up and makes it out then sees juno and then she wakes up from being unconcious and having that little dream and she is still at the bottom of the hole where she landed now realizing she didnt get out she realizes shell never get out and she goes completely mad and sort of idk "finds her happy place" (is that a good way to put it?) and sees her daughter who she loves and misses in her mind even though the camera shows they are both on the cave floor and doesnt really care about dying or the creatures or anything really except the memory of her little girl so she basically goes nuts and says f**k it.

Ironically enough, the 2005 release of the god awful "The Cave" caused Lions Gate to delay the release of the Descent until 2006 in North America so that people wouldn't get confused.

I liked The Descent a lot, but I still feel that the first two thirds of the movie was its strongest parts.

Once they introduced the creatures proper, it lost some of its punch that it had during the harrowing scenes in the beginning when the girls are simply traversing through the dangerous cave.   

i am still mad at myself for buying the full screen dvd of this by accident.
i had been waiting so long to see it and i finally get it home and open it and its full screen!!!!
ok, anyway, i really liked this movie a lot and it was nice to see a new horror movie that had creatures in it instead of a pyscho killer.
i also liked what the creatures resembled and that they were not cgi.
i am sure it would have been a lot easier for me to watch though if i had bought the widescreen dvd!!!!

I had only seen one review of it before watching it, wich didn't mention the creatures. It was just like "trust us... you have to see this". I thought it was about klaustrofobia, wich i thought was interesting enough as it was.

I was really shocked when the creatures started popping up. Haven't been that scared since the Ring (japanese).

I must say, that while I have not seen the British ending, but from reading about it, AlexB describes the British ending correctly.

Hmmm....I must have blocked out the birthday cake....I saw this in theaters in Texas when it opened, and I could have sworn that it ended with her in the car, on the road.  I thought it ended with her seeing the dead, cheating friend in the seat beside her.  I don't remember the daughter and the birthday cake?

I didn't really like this movie.  I didn't hate it, and I liked the monsters, but it was entirely too gurl power for me.  Yep, I'm a traitor, but still.  I might end up giving it another shot on DVD though. 

The British ending was the original scripted ending.

The way the American theatrical version just cut off the last 2 minutes was absurd.

The DVD release shows the original ending. That is the ending with her getting out and going to the car and then seeing Juno just for her to be back in the cave with the daughter and the birthday cake and all. The theater release cut out the birthday cake stuff and just ended with her seeing Juno in the car. I read that the director wanted the original ending but the powers that be in this country decided it would be better to cut the very last part off and have it end with her seeing Juno in the car.

I have also read theories that she was insane and killed everyone and that the monsters did not exist. While I agree she was nuts, I can't agree with the monsters not being real. There were too many scenes of other people fighting the monsters where she wasn't even involved. Why, if she was insane and it was all imagined by her, would we be seeing the monsters killing and fighting with people when she wasn't even around them?

yeah, i agree.  i am certain that she was not killing everyone. it makes no sense at all.
the creatures were there. i am not saying that she was sane either because clearly she had some issues. also, what the other women were saying about the creatures. why would they talk about their friend being numerous creatures?
the whole movie would not make sense if she were the killer.

These must have been people who watched High Tension and The Descent back-toback or something.    :twirl: