I read an interview with the director Neil Marshall that he had read a review of (the excellent) Dog Soldiers where the reviewer asked "when will a British director make a genuinely scary Horror?".
Gauntlet thrown, the result was the Descent.
I have always liked this movie. It is genuinely scary. It's claustrophobic, atmospheric and extremely well made.
It is also a growing force that asks a different question each time I watch it.
Basic story is a group of friends go caving in an uncharted cave system, get stuck, realise they're not alone and have to fight for survival against a subterranean population of mutated humanoids. It is much, much more that that. Early on the main character suffers unimaginable trauma which hits you hard. The caving trip happens a year later and the groups is still hugely grief stricken (for various reasons) and the trip is an attempt to restore some semblance of the lives they used to know.
The film is about grief.
There are also overtones of female identity. An all female cast, an exploration of what it is to be a mother and a wife and I've even read about the cave system itself being representative of a woman's body. I'm not sure if that's intentional or not but it's interesting.
The film is about womanhood.
What is fantastic about this movie is the ending. It's a little ambiguous and very much open to interpretation. Pretty bleak either way. Theories abound as to what the descent is. A descent into a cave system or a descent into madness. Our final glimpse of Sarah might indicate the latter and that then poses questions about the whole movie.
The film is about madness.
It's a proper horror and a cracking piece of British cinema.
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