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56%
Overall Rating
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Ranked #2,395
...out of 20,698 movies
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Distraught, confused, and half-wild with fear, Sarah Carter emerges alone from the Appalachian cave system where she encountered unspeakable terrors. Unable to plausibly explain to the authorities what happened - or why she's covered in her friends' blood - Sarah is forced back to the subterranean depths to help locate her five missing companions.
--TMDb
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Review by Chad
Added: March 30, 2010
In my ever so humble opinion, The Descent was one of the best horror movies of the 00s. It had everything that a better release in the genre should have: originality, legitimate scares, badass monsters, and a storyline that kept the audience wanting more up until the very end. So, knowing how much I enjoyed that movie, you can only imagine my surprise when the sequel quite literally came out of nowhere. Seriously, I heard the rumors about a sequel a few years ago, and then I saw that it was coming out on DVD in just a few weeks - nothing in between. I'm not sure if that's a sign of horrific promotion or me being completely out of the loop, but regardless, I immediately picked up a copy to see if it lived up to the high standards set by Marshall's film. It didn't, but it's far from a bad movie.
The storyline picks up just two days after the events of the first movie... well, this is assuming that you watched the North American cut with our bastardized ending - the rest of the world may be a little confused. Anyway, yes, it picks up two days later, and we discover that Sarah (Shauna Macdonald) has made it back to civilization. Granted, she's a little battered, she's a little bruised, and she is suffering from amnesia, but she is alive. She is immediately taken into police custody, and naturally, the big question on Sheriff Vaines' (Gavan O'Herlihy) mind is "Where are the other girls?" Sarah's combination of blood-soaked clothes and a complete lack of memory doesn't look good for her, so after a little digging, Vaines and his sidekick Rios (Krysten Cummings) discover a certain little cave that Sarah emerged from. Figuring that they'll find the other girls in there and not knowing the danger thanks to Sarah's memory problems, they decide to enter. You'll know what they encounter if you've seen the first film, and the cast is rounded out with spelunkers Dan (Douglas Hodge), Greg (Joshua Dallas), and Cath (Anna Skellern).
There are two ways that one could view this film. You could be an optimist and say that it's just like the first one, and with that, it has to be good: the first movie was great, this is just like it, so it's more greatness... right? Of course, the pessimist would say that it's more of the same, and thus, why did they even bother? It's not even really a sequel, it's simply a continuation of a movie that I thought already had a satisfying ending. Personally, I fall somewhere in the middle. I enjoyed this release and it did indeed match up to the first movie in many ways, but the whole "been there, done that" aspect dragged it down a bit. I have a feeling that many of you will feel the same way.
In its defense, there's really not much more that could be done with the storyline short of taking the crawlers outside of the caves, and doing that would definitely kill the claustrophobic charm while also bringing the movie down to a much more silly level. The simple fact of the matter is that keeping things confined to those caves was the best possible route to take, so really, I can't fault anyone for proceeding in that direction. Of course, the obvious downside here is that it feels a lot like the previous movie, only, without the fear of the unknown that we got there since we know the drill by now.
I want to make it clear that I'm really not shitting on this movie: again, I did enjoy it. I enjoyed the second trip down into those caves, and I especially enjoyed how the other girls from the first movie were written into this storyline. That's not a spoiler, they're not all still alive down there and nor did they turn into those crawling things, but their bodies... well, their bodies are still there and they do come into play, I'll leave it at that. I thought that this was a nice little touch, as most sequels - especially sequels by a new director - tend to ignore all but the base elements of the preceding film. I also thought that Shauna Macdonald did a great job with her role once again, and her - let's say "female costar" to avoid spoiling anything - turned in a superb performance as well.
The one truly negative thing that I can say about the movie is that I hated the ending. I can't go into detail without spoiling it, but suffice it to say that I felt that it was inserted for cheap shock value and nothing more. It made absolutely zero sense, it felt completely out of place, and it just left a horrible taste in my mouth after what was a perfectly acceptable eighty-five minutes in front of the tube. This ending left me downright baffled, as I just can not see why they did it other than the aforementioned cheap shock value: it doesn't set up a sequel, it doesn't send the audience home happy, it isn't some sort of twist that was hinted at throughout the movie, and it just... it just didn't work. I much preferred the British ending of the first film and I hated the American ending, but I could at least see why they changed it. I hated this ending as well, but there's simply no logical explanation for it.
Barring that unfortunate ending, I can certainly give the movie a recommendation to anyone who enjoyed the first movie and who would like to see a little more action down in those caves. It doesn't bring a whole lot of new material to the table and is content to basically rehash the events of the first film, but considering that I and many other horror fans loved that movie, that isn't necessarily a bad thing. 7/10.
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#1:
Ginose
- added March 30, 2010 at 4:08pm
You fucker, I'm still trying to get ahold of this
one. Didn't look like anything too special (as you
mentioned, what more can you do with the story
after the first one), but I loved the original so
much that there's no way I'd pass up a chance to
see it continued.
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#2:
Dametria
- added May 21, 2010 at 2:09pm
Finally got to watch this one (every damn redbox
around here had it checked out for over a month!)
and its awesome. Yeah, its pretty much the first
one all over but without all the touchy feely
build up, we just wanna see these people get
ripped apart. And the corpses of the other girls
down there are pretty nasty (that's always fun).
Not sure I liked the reworking of the creatures
this time around, nothing huge but I thought they
were perfect the first time around and didn't need
any tweaking (and I think the guys in the suit
over acted it big time).
Yeah the
ending was super duper retarded. I UNDERSTOOD what
they were trying to go for but....meh, unnecessary
to say the least.
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#3:
Crispy
- added January 26, 2011 at 12:42am
Movies was alright. Ending was retarded.
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