"The Descent" (2006)

Long before the traditional horror elements start kicking in, The Descent is a surefootedly scary film. Making excellent use of its cave setting to establish a primordial sense of creepiness, the film is tense far in advance of the appearance of the beasties lurking just around the corner. The difficult spelunking we see the characters attempt could so easily be problematic on its own, and that's before we even learn that they've unknowingly gone into uncharted caverns. Early on the tension and frights derive from the hikers finding themselves up against the vagaries of their environment.

The film nicely delineates into two halves. The first portion of the film sees the characters confront the complications of their trek down into the dark abyss. But suddenly the film turns on dime and all hell breaks loose. The film's backhalf is frenetic and heart-pounding, taking the clear survival instinct of the characters displayed rigorously earlier and putting them to the test. The bizarre, bat-like creatures which live below the surface and feast on human flesh are damn freaky and unsettling on their own, but the film also uses the twisting tunnels, impenetrable darkness, and great, disturbing use of light to truly get under our skin. The film gives its Gollum-esque monsters a sense of physicality and specificity which only makes the uneasiness of the situation more palpable.

If the horror bonafide thrills weren't enough, the film actually has a fair amount of depth, pun intended. The film takes its sweet time getting around to the horror. Sarah (Shauna MacDonald) loses her daughter early in the film, and the rock climbing takes place a year later. Sarah has yet to fully recover from the incident, and her friends hope to use the outing to help her get her mind off the past. The descent down into the cave neatly acts as metaphor for Sarah going down and confronting the inner demons of her psyche and her past.

The subtext is there for anyone hoping for a bit more to their genre-fare, but it wouldn't matter nearly as much if the film weren't so thoroughly thrilling. The Descent slowly gets under your skin and refuses to get out from underneath it. 

 Grade: ★★★