Brian's Review - The Descent

A fun experience that descends into stupidity.

Released: 2005
Genre(s): Horror, Thriller, Adventure

For years now, I've been told by dozens of my friends to check out "The Descent" - apparently, "one of the scariest horror movies of all time." I heard grand stories about how heavy the atmosphere was, how it was littered with terrifying jump-scares, and hardcore action sequences. And, no offense to said friends, but it all honestly made me want to avoid the eff out of something so massively hyped-up. Seven years later, my willpower worn to its breaking point, I borrowed this "instant classic" from the library to see if it really was worth all the buzz. Even though I managed to go into it with only moderately-high expectations, "The Descent" just didn't cut it for me.

One part spelunking accident film (think "Sanctum" on land), one part creature-feature, "The Descent" isn't especially original, but the concept has tons of potential for claustrophobic encounters and brutal violence, which it does manage to deliver plenty of. In fact, once the first creepy-crawly makes itself apparent (actually one of the best parts of the entire movie) and our female protagonists finally start to repurpose their climbing gear into deadly weapons, things manage to get mildly exciting. Unfortunately, the fight scenes only occasionally border on badass, with most of the girls degrading into unlikeable idiots, ending up as lame vehicles for cheap-looking gore effects. The action sequences suffer from a strong case of premature climax, satiating nothing but quick adrenaline fixes. It wouldn't be such a lopsided payout if the scenes between weren't so excruciatingly boring, infuriating, or soulless.

The main characters completely lack any semblance of intelligent thought, and therefore prevent any semblance of sympathy to be cast their way. It always sucks when a filmmaker doesn't manage to infuse a single note of humor into any of the writing, and it sucks even more when said brainless dialogue leads to the protagonists having only as much personality as the feral savages hunting them. This was like watching an episode of "BattleBots," with the girls and monsters hacking each other to pieces, except that show was fun and involved science, whereas this just involves stupid jump-scares and bad acting. I also cared about the fates of the robots in "BattleBots" more than the characters here. Cardboard cutouts, all the way around.

Don't get me wrong here - I halfway liked this movie, if only for the visceral and oftentimes over-the-top action scenes; these moments were genuinely fun and the idea of battling something hellish with a climbing pick is pretty hardcore. However, there are just far too many negatives here to give it a good score, most notably the fact that this film isn't scary at all. There is so much potential here for primal, darkness-themed, tight-quartered terror, and "The Descent" drops the ball in every way possible. This also means my friends either a) are gigantic, wimpy babies, b) are shamelessly lying trolls, or c) don't remember 2005 very well. Maybe it just wasn't that scary of a year. Then again, Robert Rodriguez did decide to make the movie "The Adventures of Sharkboy & Lavagirl" in 2005, which sucked so hard that it was horrifying to think that Rodriguez willing created it. Regardless, "The Descent" doesn't live up to the cult-like fervor surrounding it, and is a mildly distracting experience at best.

Rating (out of 5): 2.5