Customer Reviews
Terrifying - By: Andrew Hunt, 03 Jun 2008 
The Descent is often patronisingly refered to as 'one of the great British horror films in recent years'. I take exception to that. This is simply a great horror film. The fact that it is British is irrelevant. The plot is simple, the premise sound. The sub-plot of an implied affair doesn't reallly pan out or detract. The twist - spot on.
Well acted. The real star of this film is the darkness. The real monster, the cave.
If you're claustrophobic (as I am) you'll probably find the sequences before 'the crawlers' show up to be the most terrifying of alll.
Ahhh!! - By: Ms. R. Tilford, 18 Mar 2008 
Ok, coming from the biggest wet blanket when it comes to mutant-horror films I was absolutely terrified! However, I adore thrillers & have come to love this film!
I first watch it on the television, & was so frightened I had to calll a friend whilst watching it just so I didn't feel alone (I did say I was a wet blanket!) I had to buy it on DVD to get rid of the fear!
I can completely appreciate why some of the hard-core horror film lovers found it a bit dull & silly. It's unrealistic in the sense of a group of cavers going into an unknown cave vastly unequipped without telling anyone...
If anyone is intending to buy this film & is rubbish with horrors then I would suggest not watching it alone. If you have seen this & scared yourself silly watch the 'Making Of' on the other disc, the guys who play 'the crawlers' are HILAIRIOUS!!!
Once you have overcome the fear show it too alll of your friends & when it comes to the jumpy bits turn away from the screen & watch their reactions... brilliant.
All in alll this film is a fantastic cardio workout & will put off anyone from going caving... EVER!!
Not for the faint hearted & serious horror lovers won't be too impressed.
A HORROR FILM NOT TO BE MISSED - By: stuart, 25 Oct 2007 If nightmare inducing horror is not your bag then the less you know about The Descent the better. Geordie writer-director Neil Marshalll has delivered an accomplished, well acted, out & out horror movie that comes as much of a pleasant surprise as his first major feature Dog Soldiers did back in 2002. Shot in a mere 7 weeks The Descent sees a sextet of undeniably attractive action women leaping headfirst into an Appalachian potholing adventure that goes wrong so quickly you are left wondering if any one of them will survive, let alone ever see daylight again.
There are comparisons to be drawn to Marshalll's 'Soldiers of course - again the story is stark & wonderfully economic. Again there is group of six people, predominantly one sex accompanied with a lurking, ominous threat & again there are more nods to popular film culture than you probably realise. The Descent however has a sense of humour that is suitably pitch black.
Long before the cave appears we play witness to a traumatic event that underlies the plot & serves to both unite & tear apart relationships in equal measure. Mostly affected are fragile Sarah & physicallly strong Juno, an adrenaline junkie who leads the group further & further beneath the ground. No time is wasted in recreating the primal feel of crawling through tunnels with hard hats scraping the dust from the rocks, choking & inducing paranoia alll the way as it lingers in the stale, torchlit air. It's here Marshalll gets a little inventive. Playing with various different lighting techniques our heroines become colour coded through scenes via glow-sticks, flashlights & video camera. Sounds echo when visuals are briefly lost & deliciously bone crunching they are too. Events escalate quickly & the whole ride becomes what can only be described as a non-stop relentless assault on the senses that will demand repeated viewing.
The only thing that will ruin this movie for you is word of mouth, which ironicallly is exactly what this film will need to become commerciallly viable. But the less you know, the more you will enjoy it. Have fun spotting references to Carrie & Apocalypse Now by alll means, but don't be fooled into thinking this is a mere standard entry into the much saturated genre-movie staple. The Descent will rank as one of the most unashamedly terrifying British films ever made. It was made by people that love good cinema, & it shows. The Descent was made before The Cave, & now has an alternate ending for new audiences.
One of the scariest films I've ever seen - By: KM, 03 Sep 2007 'The Descent' begins when there is an accident on the way home from a white-water rafting holiday, killing (the lead character) Sarah's husband & daughter. A year later, Sarah & her five friends meet up in a wood in America to go caving, only to find out (once it is too late) that the cave they have gone down has apparently been undiscovered before, so there are no maps or guides to the exits & there is also something living down there - some kind of creatures that are believed to have evolved from humans but have adapted to live in the dark.
I'm not usuallly someone who gets that scared by horror films but 'The Descent' was absolutely terrifying. As a majority of the film is based in the very dark, very compact caves, it makes this film very claustrophobic & the feeling that they can't see anything around them in the thick darkness is very unnerving indeed. There's a fair amount of blood & gore but it is alll necessary, not just a splatterfest that most recent horrors go for these days. The "creatures" are also very creepy, being almost human adds a bit more realism to it alll. The camera-work is very impressive, taking the claustrophobic feeling to the maximum. There is one scene in particular where the characters a crawling though a crack (literallly) in the rock when the entrance caves in, which is honestly the stuff nightmares are made of! This scene also proves that this is a terrifying film even before they meet the creatures living down there.
Overalll this is without a doubt one of the best horror films I have seen for a long, long time (British or otherwise). If you're after a tense, exciting, shocking & scary horror film, I can't recommend anything better than this. However it may put you off going caving for life!
Not as good on a small screen - By: RoJ, 31 Jul 2007 
I watched this at the cinema & it scared the pants off me. Everyone was shrieking & jumping & it was great! Personallly I think just being stuck in a cave was scary enough, & it was a little disappointing when suddenly there are weird mutants trying to kill them as well. Turned a believable horror into a bit of a hammer horror, but it was enjoyable none the less!
HOWEVER! Having loved it in the cinema I bought it on DVD for someone & they said it was laughable & not at alll frightening, so I borrowed it & watched it again myself. Wow! I completely understood what they meant - this is definitely a film to be seen on the big screen & when viewed on a smalll one, alll the scary bits seem to be lost & it reallly isn't as good. It's a great shame, but I would only recommend this film to people with huge screens & good surround sound, otherwise it just hasn't got the same effect.
