THE DESCENT 2 is like FINAL DESTINATION 2 or WRONG TURN 2 or about 100 other horror sequels, in that we get more of the same and it's usually not as good as the original. In this case, the editor of the first movie is the director of this one, and clearly wasn't given the greatest script to work with. But he does about as good a job as anyone in his position probably could. A rescue party goes into the caves to find the missing girls from the first movie, and they drag a shell-shocked Sarah from the first movie along with them. We do not have to wait long for the cave creatures to show up and start eating the would-be rescuers. Since we have been through this once already, there is far less shock value this time around. There are, however, a couple of kick-ass fight scenes and the film is perhaps even bloodier than the original. Accents are all over the place, as it was filmed in England and not in Appalachia, where it is supposedly set. In truth, Part 2 is not a must-see unless you are dying to see what happened to Sarah.
Add a Review
-
ctomvelu116 March 2010
-
I rated these two movies 7 and 6 stars respectively, but I also own the novel of the same name by Jeff Long, published in 1999 (hardback) and 2001 (paperback). That book is so good, I went searching for a movie by that name, and sure enough there are now at least 3: the 2 "Descents," and "The Cave". All came out way after the publication of the book.
The book is, as is mostly, but not always the case, better than movies based on it. (See and read "The Green Mile" by Stephen King).
The second movie, DP2, uses the more humanoid vicious cave creatures based on the Hadal characters created by Jeff Long. I guess the movie makers thought they got away with it the first time, so why not just blatantly rip off the characters too with no credit?
Anyhoo, both Descent movies are well worth watching if you're a horror fan, but if you're also a reader please pick up Jeff Long's novel as well. Much more character development, suspense, and it is quite the page turner. Don't get started on a work night like I did!
The novel also involves enslavement of humans by the underground mutant Hadals, physical mutilation, mind manipulation; just deeply, deeply disturbing.
I took a point off DP2 for too many jump scares. I'm not a real fan of those with the exception of the one near the end of the original "Carrie" 1976 when the hand comes out of the grave when Carrie's repentant classmate is placing flowers, which to me, is quintessential. Gets me to this day!
Does anyone know why Jeff Long gets no credit? Perhaps I'm ignorant of a previous work about underground mutants victimizing humans, but when I read his work a decade or so ago, I thought it was pretty original. Sadly, the two links on the Wikipedia article about this work are dead (account disabled). I hope it is not because he cannot afford it because others have ripped him off so badly. -
A sequel. I should end my review right there. But in the interest of taking up useless e-space, I'll continue. For me, The Descent Part 2 had 2 strikes against it before the opening credits rolled. Director Neil Marshall has not stepped back behind the camera to further his already finished story and the sequel is a continuation of the North American ending. Now, if you're one of the special people who were able to see the original a year, or maybe more before the North American release, you'll know that the original ending is superior in every way. It wraps the story up, and fits in with the rest of the film's bleak, hopeless tone. I'm not sure if studios feel that us American's are stupid, or if we just are too fragile to handle a down ending, but whatever the case, our protagonist survives. Found running through the woods, caked in blood, she's rushed to the hospital. Found to remember nothing upon initial questioning, the sheriff leading the search for the other missing girls decides the best course of action is to take this woman-in-shock directly back to the place that caused her the trauma. Somehow, The Descent 2 manages to continue where the first film leaves off, but feel like a complete cash-in at the same time. Some scenarios are lifted directly from the original. In the first film, the overwhelming sense of claustrophobia was treated as a character in the movie. It's one of the reasons the first film was so effective. Seeing those petite women barely making it through the holes in the cave left you feeling uneasy. This is not present in the sequel. In fact, the sheriff is a pretty big guy. I'm not going to say he was fat, but he's definitely built, and he manages to move with ease throughout the corridors. The original actresses return to reprise the roles of Sarah, and Juno, whom is somehow still alive, even though we heard her screaming while she was torn to shreds in the first film. Apparently, in her 2 days of surviving the creatures in the cave, she's become some sort of commando, hunting down and killing the cave's inhabitants. She has a short part, and half of her part is spent completely silent. They try to describe it away by saying something to the extent of "Silence is your best weapon" but it feels tacked on. One of the biggest problems with the sequel is it's pacing. In the original, we weren't even introduced to the creatures until like an hour into the film. The entire first hour was spent on character development, and building suspense. We knew they weren't alone, they knew they weren't alone, but the menacing creatures weren't really introduced until the third act. Here, it's as if the director just wanted to get to the killing as quickly as possible. We don't know anything about most of the characters, and we don't care when they are killed off. In the original, you could tell that all the girls were close friends, and you could tell that when one of them was picked off, it effected the rest of the characters. Another problem I had were with some of the special effects. Don't get me wrong, there is some decent gore in The Descent 2, including one hell of an amputation scene, but there was something wrong with the blood. It's as if the special effects team have never actually seen blood before. When characters are wounded, we're treated with an arterial spray of what appears to be Cambpell's tomato soup, in both color and consistency. All in all though, it's a watchable flick. It's loaded with problems, some forgivable, some not(Random, unexplained twist ending.) But I've seen worse movies, and certainly worse sequels.(Butterfly Effect 2?) But if you enjoyed the creatures in the first film, you'll probably find something to like about the sequel, just don't expect it to be anywhere close to the brilliance of the original, and you'll have fun.
-
Simonster13 May 2009Viewed at the Marche du Film, Festival de Cannes 2009
Picking up almost immediately where The Descent left off, the bloodstained Sarah has made it out the cave system, is taken to hospital and then back into the caves as an unwilling member of a rescue party to find her missing friends.
If you saw the first film, then you know what happens in this one. If you know the horror genre, then you know who will get offed, too. None of which matters a hoot, because familiarity breeds respect and cast, director and writers, deliver exactly what viewers want. There are the crawlers, lots of blood, some nicely delivered shocks, plenty of gnarly special effects and women getting down, dirty and deadly with climbing axes, bare hands and lumps of rock.
Because all concerned have resisted the urge to widen the story, introduce new things for the heck of it (such as, I dunno, flying crawlers), The Descent: Part 2 is actually much stronger than is usually the case for sequels.
A left-field twist right at the end could be a set up for part 3, but it's hard to tell. While it didn't come as a surprise (those horror genres again), it did feel a bit tacked-on. But that's a very minor quibble and does nothing to detract from what is a great piece of horror entertainment and a worthy successor to its predecessor. -
nogodnomasters5 August 2019This film picks up where the first one left off. Flashbacks come later in a discovered camera. Sarah has survived but has amnesia. The idea is to jog her memory by taking her back to the cave with blind mutant orcs so they can make the same film over again with some different characters. And BTW Juno is still alive.
I enjoyed this one as much as the first. I thought the characters were slightly better.
Guide: F-word. No sex or nudity. Note: Do not ride in an elevator that has been dormant for years. It needs to be inspected and certified per OSHA 1917.116 -
Scarecrow-8814 May 2010Sarah(Shauna Macdonald), survivor of the first film, plagued with amnesia(the trauma temporarily blocking the horrifying incidents she had been through), is forced to accompany a sheriff, the sheriff's deputy, and a rock climbing team into the uncharted cave system to find her missing friends. Yep, another descent into the dark where monsters lurk. Sarah is a suspect because she's the only member of her team to have returned and had blood on her clothes.
A gun going off, unstable rocks, claustrophobic surroundings, and only helmet lights to guide the way..our cast are certainly in for a rude awakening.
Keeping ties to the first film, The Descent Part 2 is the highly disregarded sequel which seems, to it's many, many critics to be a step in the wrong direction from the original. I do agree that they are different films.
The Descent was an "ooga booga" spookshow where something barely recognizable kept attacking and killing the female rock climbing team. The sequel shows them in their glory(they look like nosferatu to me)and, in my opinion, this movie is more of a gory creature feature. For most of the running time, it's about characters trapped in a cave with only their flashlights to help them move about, as they both attempt to find a way out and survive the ghastly inhabitants, blind carnivorous dwellers who hunt their prey through sound. The cast must use whatever tools or weapons(rocks)are available to them when on the offensive/defensive and it gets plenty bloody.
In the sequel, we see a lot more and I think that many will feel it loses the effectiveness of the original's power..the whole point about what it is that you don't see scattered about in the darkness, scaling walls and hungry. The Descent Part 2 is lighted differently in that we see everything clearer as those involved keep their torches burning. Real suspense is traded in for teeth ripping flesh and an assortment of weapons used to stab the creatures with gushing blood a result. Whatever it is that gives you your visceral thrills, I imagine many of The Descent's fans will have a hard time adjusting to the differences between it and the sequel.
I actually enjoyed The Descent Part 2 up until the misguided ending which left me rolling my eyes in puzzlement. I can only guess that those which loathed this sequel didn't care for the look of the creatures(I did for I thought they were a ghoulish sight)or how the story about the characters fight for survival developed. I think the best suspense sequence has one rock climber trapped in a "boulder choke"(collapsing boulders surround her and she must somehow escape as one of the cave monsters finds it's way in to get after her).
The sequel allows for us to see several of the victims from the first film worse for wear(the understatement of the week), and there's a revelation later regarding the fate of one of the girls left for dead in The Descent. Closure is allowed for two characters who had split on not-so-friendly terms.
Depending on your expectations going in, this will either upset you or maybe surprise you in how it's not so terribly made in the way sequels often are to their predecessors. Without the stupid ending, I actually enjoyed this sequel quite a bit. I thought the graphic violence delivered and I actually found the creatures a rather menacing brood of voracious predators. -
Descent 1 was probably one of the best Horror-Movies in the last decade. At least in my opinion that is. It had good actors, a great setting and interesting monsters. All things missing in most Horror-Flicks these days. When Sarah got stuck in that tunnel i thought my heart just stops beating. And there were not even any monsters in that scene. It were scenes like that, that made it a great movie. They never explained anything, you never knew what really happened. Did Sarah (and the others maybe too) just snap and did she kill all her friends? Were they only hallucinating? The sequel was a sure thing after the success. And a sequel of course destroys all of that. They need to bring explanations in a sequel, otherwise it's only lame. The story needs to be pushed further, that's what sequels are for. Descent 2 has no real story. A chubby sheriff forces a traumatized girl into a cave again, in which she nearly died shortly before? That's how they wanted to bring Sarah into the new Movie? Why did'nt they just use the other ending of Descent, where Sarah never escapes the cave? That way it would've made so much more sense for her to be there. How this chubby sheriff thinks he can climb down in that cave, makes you wonder too. He'd never be able to come very far in a cave like that. Then they find the camera, used in part one and you get proof that those monsters were not hallucinations of Sarah, they're on Film. One after another gets killed very bloody. Then they find Juno! Yeah the Juno we saw die in part one. The Juno who got jumped by twenty of these monsters after Sarah injured her badly. But we are to believe she survived all that. She became in the two days between part 1 and 2 an amazon-like fighter without any bad injuries. WTF? And she tells the others, she'd know the exit. So why is she still down there then and has'nt escaped already? The stupid sheriff meanwhile handcuffs Sarah to himself? Great Idea! No, actually more a desperate attempt to add some tension to the story. Things of course go wrong and the sporty sheriff of course falls down into a hole while Sarah lies above on the Ground screaming in pain. Instead of pulling him out of the hole (I mean, there were THREE girls there!) they decide to cut of his hand in a very bloody scene! Then Juno dies! Why pretend she survived only to kill her minutes later again? Sarah dies too. The other girl escapes the cave. But then the man that brought Sarah to the Hospital in the beginning of the movie finds her in the middle of a giant wood and knocks her out and brings her body back to the cave, apparently in order to feet the creatures. That's the end of the Movie. You never get to know why he did it, or more interesting why he did'nt do it to Sarah in the beginning, nor how and what he knows about the monsters. All in all this is not a real sequel but a poor try to re-tell part 1. You do not find out anything new. Nothing really interesting happens. And the thing with the guy is really stupid. It's a gory Horrormoie with some nice bloody scenes in it. But you'll find yourself desperately looking for some logic.
-
I'm sure this will be the general feel from the majority of reviews but I've got to say that the Descent part 2 is just what you should expect; Similar character development but less of; Similar direction/cinematography but less of; Similar jumpy frights but less of; Similar gore but less of; Similar crawlers but less of; Similar fun but less of. However, for a £3.5m budget, 1st time director and not much room to manoeuvre with the script it's definitely an enjoyable Friday night flick worth investing in. Hey guys it's a sequel and with few exceptions (which I'm sure are discussed ad nauseum on IMDb notice boards) sequels at best are watered down versions of the originals. Not as good as "The Descent" but certainly better than Mr. Marshall's "Doomsday".
-
Goodness. What a horrible, horrible follow-up to one of the best horror experiences of the past decade.
Where the first film was suspenseful and claustrophobic, this film displays constantly open cave dwellings and is repetitious to the point were no suspense can be truly built. I swear this takes place in an entirely different cave system, despite the film claiming it's supposedly the same exact one. Not even the revisited stomping grounds look the same.
The original film also used light sparingly in an attempt to actually make the audience feel as if they were trapped in a cave with the cast of the film. This sequel constantly shows bright surroundings, with light coming from unseen sources--particularly overhead, making it feel as if these characters aren't inside a cave system in the first place. Apparently the cave dwellers like to place small lava lamps and glow sticks around their territory because they... rave? I'm not sure where all this light was coming from! Strangely our characters can't seem to see what's going on even with all of this illumination and they keep bumping into each other in the "dark." Maybe there were budget problems but that doesn't excuse the lousy script and characters. Shauna Macdonald tries her hardest to keep the film afloat (she's pretty solid with what she has been given to work with), but I imagine this would be like what Sigourney Weaver would be doing had she been trapped in an AVP film. She seems like the only honest character in the film, suffering from the events of the prior nightmare, but the supporting casts around her are nothing more than bumbling idiots.
You don't feel anything for any other member of the cast. Despite David Julyan's score swelling in some of the fateful scenes, I felt almost no emotion behind any of the events this time. None of the deaths or tragedies make an impact like the deaths of those in the original movie. In fact, one scene at the end tries to tie up a major story thread from the previous movie, but it simply comes off as tacky and against the grain of the characters we have come to know.
The final nail in the tragically shoddy coffin is the ending, which is also funny whether intentional or not.
Related Recommendations: The Descent, The Thing, Eden Log, Pandorum, REC, Cube, Pitch Black -
vengeance202 October 2019Just finished watching this film about 2 months after seeing the first & found this to be a solid enough sequel to its 2005 predecessor.
The film picks up directly from where it left off 4 years ago. The soul survivor gets her claim called bull when she and other mountaineerers are forced back into the dark caves where more vicious monsters are laying in wait.
Unlike the first film, the opener was pretty crap. Not very exciting, but I guess it's a direct pick up so... For the next 40 minutes, the crew and soul survivor go back into the dark caves to try & find the 5 friends the soul survivor claims are dead. But things quickly turn awry after the 40 minute mark & real horror kicks in.
I found the film to be alright, once it got going that is. Over half an hour of no kills or monsters is bad given this film is shorter than the first at 1 hour 26 minutes. But it did deliver with all the gruesome kills and bloody spills.
The end however was random & didn't entirely make sense. But hey... no female soul survivors is fine with me!
7/10 -
toddmichaelstarks11 July 2022What hospital/ Trauma Unit/ Doctor/ & Police would ever allow a half dead, hysterical, beat up, and traumatized women to go back to the place where she was almost killed. Lol. Didn't even have time to have her bruises heal. Lol. Lost me right there.
-
Movieboy_2014 September 2010In the wake of the terror she and her friends endured at the hands of the monstrous Crawlers during their spelunking trip in 'The Descent', Sarah Carter (Shauna Macdonald) miraculously emerges from the godforsaken caves bloody, distraught and at a complete loss of memory. As hard as he tries, local enforcer Roger Payne (Doug Ballard) can't elicit much more than a delusional mumble from her when he asks about the whereabouts of the remaining girls. Recklessly, he decides to assemble a crack team of spelunkers to accompany Sarah back into the caves in a hope of jogging her memory and hopefully locating the other missing girls.
As they venture deeper and deeper into the bleak, ominous depths of the caverns, Sarah gradually manages to recall the past horrors which befall upon her. But will it all be too late? The heart of this film is a glorious, balls-to-the-wall creature feature with a shawl of beautiful stark atmosphere. The blood comes in gallons, the Crawlers are as disgustingly foul as ever and there is ample dread at every point of the grim, foreboding caverns. Jon Harris' direction is fantastic, capturing the mood of claustrophobia perfectly. Also contributing to the brilliant sense of unease is the cast, who all convey isolation and fear with realism and deftly crafted trauma. All this is packed nice and taut with swift scripting and editing, ridding any notions of dullness which could potentially develop in the repetitive setting.
Two of my favourite parts include the underwater segment and Cath being trapped amongst the boulders - both portray the utter anxiety of claustrophobia and physical isolation perfectly. The ending was also cool; I love me a hopeless, downbeat climax.
All in all, I dug the hell out this delightfully bleak creature feature. I highly recommend it. -
johnjanis31 July 2020For a sequel this is surprisingly good. The shock factor is gone admittedly but the filming is not as dark so you see more of the creatures and it's probably even gorier than the first one too. If you enjoyed the first one then really there is no reason you won't like this as well.
-
nathanmanson9 February 2019I enjoyed the film until the ending that has to be the most frustrating ending to a film I've ever seen. Why I mean why the hell did they feel the need to kill Juno off again, I've just got over the first time she died then you hit me with that crap.
-
amesmonde14 April 2010A Sheriff suspects that Sarah has killed her friends and forces her to return to the caves with a rescue team.
Even after the UK ending of The Descent, Sarah still manages to get out but is forced back to the uncharted underground to help locate her five missing companions.
I'll try not reminisce over the amazing first film, there appears to be some mixed comments on The Decent: Part 2. If you did like The Descent, for the record the follow up even with the tantalising story setup it is sadly a huge disappointment.
Surprisingly the excellent editor Jon Harris gives a poor directorial debut. Even with some of the strong original cast including Shauna Macdonald and Natalie Mendoza, they simply can't save J Blakeson and James McCarthy poor screenplay. On board is Eden Lake's writer James Watkins and support from cinematographer Sam McCurdy (The Descent, Dog Soldiers, Doomsday to name a few).
It feels and looks like a poor mans interpretation of the Descent, it's not a straight to video production but its almost there, awful dialogue, little if any character development, no suspense and poorly executed scares and that's just touching the surface. The film looks rushed, the lighting, sets, sound, direction, everything on screen looks cheap and nasty. It lacks the grittiness of the first and the Crawler's don't look as menacing or a realistic.
It is only worth watching to see how film with such great talent can go so wrong. -
ryshpr9 March 2010The original Descent movie is one of my favourite horror films, so I was really looking forward to feasting my eyes on the second part. To be fair, I wasn't expecting anything near as what the original movie offered.
The Descent: Part 2 follows Sarah, the sole escapee of the cave in the first movie. She has amnesia and despite this she is questioned by police regarding the whereabouts of her friends. She then gets forced back down into the cave with a new team so they can discover what went on down there.
The film follows on right after the ending of the American version of the movie which wasn't really to my liking, partly as it's a British horror movie and also because the British ending of The Descent is so much better.
I was pleasantly surprised though, despite ridiculing the movie literally from start to finish by comparing it to the original (well I was watching it with friends). As a stand-alone movie this is a pretty good one. There were a few scenes just too similar to the original movie and some where just plain ridiculous, but in a good way if that makes sense.
The death scenes and the moments building towards them were executed brilliantly. Director Jon Harris executes eerie and scary suspense perfectly, pulling you into the scene in question. Furthermore, the scenes from the first movie are recreated perfectly so much so that you'd swear this movie was made at the same time as the original.
It's nowhere near as good as the original, but a surprisingly good sequel. Plot-holes and revealing mistakes aside, it's good fun, but don't be surprised if you're raising your eyebrow at the ending.
http://ukmore.tk/ -
karaokebowl8 May 2020This film was surprisingly good as sequels go but it certainly doesn't measure up to the first movie. I can't believe that Sara would ever go back down there though no matter what she could remember. I'd be sayin hell noooo!!!
-
njameslucky1 June 2019This movie would have been watchable if not for the ending. I prefer to pretend this movie doesn't exist
-
paul_haakonsen17 March 2010If you liked the first movie ("The Decent"), then you will most definitely like part two. In fact, you HAVE to watch it, as the sequel picks up right where the first one ended, and sort of comes full circle when it ends.
Again, descending into the dark caverns beneath our safe and sound "surface" world, The Descent 2 is another foray into the dark subterranean world beneath ours. As with part 1, the scenery here is dark and creepy, giving you a sense of claustrophobia and paranoia.
It was good to see some return of characters from part 1.
The cast for part 2 was equally good, just as it was in part 1. Everyone here did a really good job at bringing their characters to life on screen, even the ones with small supporting roles.
The Descent 2 is a thrill ride from start to end, just like part 1 was. There are a couple of scenes that will make you jump, but no major frights. But of course, that is not the intention here. They pulled it off again so well with the claustrophobia and constant paranoia and fear as the characters are hunted by the subterranean dwellers. As with part 1, the creatures were nicely put together, good make-up, good prosthetics, and very believable.
This sequel is a MUST to watch for fans of the first Descent movie. -
SnoopyStyle1 February 2020Following the events of the first movie, Sarah (Shauna Macdonald) is taken to a hospital. She has memory loss. A rescue team searches the caves for the missing women. A dog tracks one of the woman to an abandoned unexplored mine. Sheriff Vaines (Gavan O'Herlihy) takes deputy Elen Rios, Sarah, three cavers, and old timer Ed Oswald down into the depths.
The horror of the cave dwellers is diminished this time around. They are no longer the surprise of the first movie. The first issue is Sarah's position in the eyes of the law. At the hospital, she should be a suspect in murdering her companions. It would have been a more compelling position to put Sarah into. Once in the tunnels, the movie gets back into the claustrophobia which is so vital to the previous movie. There is one terrific section where a woman is trapped in a cave-in. One returning character is beyond belief. Overall, the shock is gone and this sequel fails to reach new depths. -
kosmasp25 October 2009Unfortunately it is based on the less effective ending of the first movie. If you haven't watched the first part (Descend), you might want to continue with the second paragraph, because I'm going to write about the two different endings of part 1. So here goes: The original ending of Descend was that the sole survivor we know of, is escaping the caves and the monsters, running in the forest, only to wake up and to realize that it was all a dream and she is still in the caves. The other ending stops, when we see her running through the woods, letting us to believe she did escape.
And this where this movie starts off. So you could say, that this diminishes the impact of the original movie. If you can overcome that, then you will enjoy the second part, that is actually pretty good and scary. As you can imagine, it does make sense to have seen the first one, for quite some reasons (though I won't reveal them here, so you can enjoy them in the movie) :o) -
An experienced rescue team composed by Dan (Douglas Hodge), Greg (Joshua Dallas) and Cath (Anna Skellern) is trying to locate the six women in the caves of the Appalachian Mountains. Meanwhile Sarah (Shauna Macdonald) is found wounded, covered with blood, in shock and amnesic by a truck driver and brought to the Hyett County Hospital. Sheriff Vaines (Gavan O'Herlihy) suspects that Sarah has killed her friends and forces her to return to the Boreham Caves together with his Deputy Rios (Krysten Cummings) and the rescue team. They search deeper and deeper in the caves but when Sarah recovers her memory, she panics and Sheriff Vaines shoots, provoking a cave-in. The trapped group sooner faces the hunger and savage breed of predators while trying to find a way out.
"The Descent" is a scary, claustrophobic, tense and gore story, and a psychological study of the characters under a huge condition of stress, deteriorating the relationship among them. Unfortunately "The Descent: Part 2" is a stupid sequel of a good story that could have worked. However, Sheriff Vaines is an imbecile character and his stupid attitudes, taking Sarah that is wounded and in shock to return to the underground, shooting in the cave and cuffing Sarah in a tense moment, are so absurd that ruin the plot. The terrible conclusion with the intention to give a hook to a sequel (or prequel, since the creatures might be relatives of the old man and other families of miners) is awful. The best line is the moment when Sarah tells Rios that "it is just the mind playing tricks on you". My vote is five.
Title (Brazil): "Abismo do Medo 2" ("Abyss of the Fear 2") -
Elvis-Del-Valle26 July 2023This second chapter of the bloody British film continues the story after the end of the previous one and gives a kind of conclusion to this story, although not entirely clear. It maintains the level of terror and violence of the previous film, although the story comes to feel a little shorter and that it required more suspense. The film is right to follow the continuity of the previous film and use the original protagonist as the driver. The gore is acceptable and exaggerated, the special effects are good, although it can be noticed in some parts how very practical they are. The Descent: Part 2 is a good lights-out horror movie despite falling a bit short compared to the original film. My final rating for this movie is 8/10.
-
justice_for_allro17 October 2016It felt like a decent sequel especially if u consider how good the first one really was.
It has some claustrophobic moments, some tension, good and funny dialogue in certain scenes. Of course, cliche's are there but it doesn't fell too far fetched.
Good to see some continuity regarding cast, decor set/set design and creature appearance.
Also nice to see that some actors from previous film were cast and delivered credible performance.
I would recommend it even if you haven't seen the original, which is a must see in my opinion. -
rabbitmoon6 September 2009I saw the premiere of this at Frightfest in UK. The film was introduced by the director (previously an editor) and actors - and the director's complete absence of any self-confidence when talking to the audience was a bad omen. Shauna McDonald even said "be nice to him... he isn't Neil Marshall - but he might just be better" which felt embarrassingly over-supportive. If he can't talk to strangers, is he really going to have the confidence to direct a film? Descent 2 is full of bad acting, flat characters (even Sarah and Juno seem suddenly devoid of character or depth), a very poor script, bad editing and very bad direction. Examples being - some badly timed or inappropriate attempts at humour, horrible exposition from Sarah that is totally out of character. The things that made the first film great - the depth of characters, the dynamics, the subtle back-story and the ambiguity of the events in the caves as a metaphor for Sarahs madness were completely absent from the sequel. Yet, it copies pretty much everything else, the overhead car shots (which Harris also edited into Eden Lake), the David Julyan soundtrack (which is excellent, and not lived up to by the film this time round), the cave shots and the endless 'boo' moments of crawler attacks. They're simply not interesting anymore if you have already enjoyed the first movie. The ending is simply horrible (not in a good way), completely incongruent and will infuriate many viewers. Its such a shame that the story wasn't developed into a new area into a film that could stand alone on its own two feet. You might think I'm being harsh on Jon Harris, the director, but I am honestly getting tired of first time directors messing up great opportunities for film-making. Fans of the first film really deserved better than this.