With the recent delays to Halloween Kills and Candyman, audiences are looking to the past for their frights this spooky season. With a unique blend of psychological horror and creatures, Neil Marshall’s The Descent is the perfect choice. What begins as a routine caving expedition organized to help a group of friends reconnect after a tragic accident unravels to become a desperate fight for survival.
A group of women reconnect after one of them suffers a devastating personal loss. The outdoor adventures they used to take together were put on hold while Sarah grieved, but a spelunking trip has brought them together again. Things go wrong in ways that are terrifying before the real “horror” part of the movie begins, all of it taking place deep underground, in immense darkness.
Minor spoilers for The Descent follow.
Much of the horror of The Descent resides in how the film unsettles the audience by building an ominous atmosphere. From the beginning, a gnawing feeling pervades that something lurks beneath the surface. Often that comes from the characters’ relationships with one another, other times it’s in the oppressive darkness that surrounds them. The sparse use of dialogue allows the audience to infer meaning and prevents conflict within the group from disrupting the action. It helps the characters remain likable, whilst maintaining a simmering tension – none of which feels artificial.
Similarly, there’s little to indicate that their environment is fabricated. The cave system was actually a set built at Pinewood Studios with the production crew believing it was too dangerous to film in an actual cave. However, the crew manage to counteract this limitation through their intelligent use of lighting throughout the film. As one of the characters points out early in the film, the only light underground is what someone brings down with them. The Descent uses that not only to create a creepy environment, but also to differentiate the characters once they split up. Each group has a different colored light source, making it easy for the viewer to keep track of who’s doing what.
There are brief moments of respite as the women reach open pockets within the caves, granting a reprieve from the cloying claustrophobia of the tunnels. Yet, as they deploy flares to light their way, the tension remains. Their red light creates an air of hostility, evoking imagery of the underworld, but demons haunt these characters from the shadows in more ways than one. As they descend into the depths, any concerns that what stalks them might never materialize erode. There are a couple of elusive hints before it becomes obvious they’re not alone, which feeds the feeling of paranoia the encroaching darkness evokes. Make sure to also keep your eyes peeled for an iconic scene which the 2013 Tomb Raider pays homage to.
When the Crawlers make their presence known to the group, carnage ensues. The fact that they are played by real actors, grants them a physicality which grounds the creatures in reality. CGI is rarely deployed here and the film is better for it. This is one the most capable sets of protagonists to feature in a horror film, that they are women is all the more rare. Having watched how capably they traverse their surroundings to this point only serves to emphasize how vicious their foe is. There’s an interesting juxtaposition between the community of Crawlers’ co-ordinated attacks and the degrading relationship between the women, as things become more desperate they opt for self preservation as they become disconnected – which makes them all the more human. Again, Marshall’s clever use of lighting prevents the action from becoming confused with each group lit differently to make their plights easily identifiable as the action jumps between them.
It’s a testament to the skills of both the director and production team that there are few signs that the film turned fifteen this year. The script is tight an full of twists, like the many arterial passages the protagonists navigate. Each hint for the audience is rewarded with a significant pay off, as are repeat viewings. Some of them are obvious, others are more subtle – such as the number of candles on Sarah’s daughter’s birthday cake. With a runtime just over 90 minutes, The Descent manages to touch upon a variety of themes in meaningful ways: tragedy, growing old and apart, but the most prevalent is the film’s exploration of PTSD. Trauma can so often become an inescapable pit – particularly when there is a glimmer of hope at the end of the tunnel.
Part of what makes The Descent so terrifying is the unknown, what might be lurking in the shadows. From the Crawlers, to Sarah’s own mental state and the uncertainty that fractures this group of friends – setting it apart from many of its contemporaries. It’s fitting then, that the film lingers long in the memory after watching – making it the perfect viewing this Halloween.
The Descent is available on Blu-ray, DVD and VOD streaming services.
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