Review: The Descent

Image from IMDB.

I've been watching horror films for more than 30 years now and very few of them actually scare me. Fewer still are the ones that continue to terrify me long after I've watched them. A handful of films have done this in recent years including Get Out, Insidious, and The Platform, but I ultimately got over them. Get Out didn't scare me per se, but it was more shocking and I truly appreciate the craftsmanship that went into it from all disciplines.

But The Descent continues to linger with me and it's been well over a year since I watched it.

The basic premise is that a group of women go on an adventure to reconnect with each other. Their choice of activity is spelunking. This quickly turns to misadventure as the group gradually shrinks.

Thematically, it's a man vs man and a man vs nature tale. The nature part being differently evolved humanoids. But it's also an allegory for the divisiveness we see in society today. These humanoids are brutally savage beings who only care for their in group. They are basically cannibals and eat all their meat raw. They are the antithesis of progressiveness. They will not live and let live. Instead, they brutally murder and eat anything and anyone who comes into their cave system.

There is a second in the series, and though I'm curious about what happens in it, I really don't think I can handle watching it alone.

The level of brutality in the film earns it an R rating and I think it's warranted.

Will it terrify you? Horror is a truly subjective genre. Someone with coulrophobia is going to be a lot more freaked out by Stephen King's It than the rest of us. House stories like Insidious and Rose Red probably scare me more than others because I'm a nester type who likes making my home as comfortable as possible. You'll need to see it yourself to know if it will affect you as it has me.

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Rae Roy

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