The Descent 2005 (Neil Marshall)

The Descent 2005 (Neil Marshall)

Stars:Shauna MacDonald,Natalie Mendoza, Alex Reid

Score: 96%

This film was brilliant, an all time favorite and one that I have watched several times. First of all this film, to me, celebrates the power of women particularly in horror. Often overlooked but in a lot of horror, women are potentially equal to men. The Descent uses women as both the 'damsel in distress' characters and the 'prince' that saves them. The Descent shows that the lead character does not need to be male to fight monsters.

Another great thing about this film, and indeed quite a few British horrors, is that the characters think for themselves rather than following stereotypes to the letter. Because of the more independent characters it becomes more difficult to speculate the order that they are going to die. This makes the film more exciting and more of a thrill.

The Descent released it's monster at the right moment, not too early or too late. What I love about the creepy humanoid killers are that they are not invulnerable. This again adds uncertainty, as the women are able to fight off a proportion of the monsters. There are plenty of gruesome slaughters both of the women and of the creatures.

There is great effort made to keep the lighting in the caves focused rather than widespread, so only the monsters are revealed. This adds to the claustrophobia and restricts the characters and audiences vision and therefore security. Immediately when crawling through the caves, before any monsters show up the film has thrown some of the audience off-balance and left them ready for a scare.