The Descent (2005, UK)
In writer/director Neil Marshall's claustrophobic adventure-horror thriller, it told about a caving expedition taken by a group of six, extremely-athletic female spelunkers (six unknown actresses). As expected, they became hopelessly trapped due to a rock-fall deep within unmapped caverns underground in the Appalachians of North Carolina. They faced numerous obstacles, including the lack of oxygen, and attacks by monstrous, humanoid predators. The director claimed that three films influenced the way he built up unbearable tension: John Boorman's Deliverance (1972), Tobe Hooper's The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974), and John Carpenter's The Thing (1982) .
With a budget of £ 3.5 million, the tense and exciting film about an extreme outdoor adventure grossed revenues of 26ドル million (domestic) and 57ドル.2 million (worldwide). It was followed by director Jon Harris' sequel The Descent Part 2 (2009).
The spelunking group became trapped deep underground in the dark in an Appalachian cavern after a cave-in of their tunnel's roof. Their return route out of the cave was now blocked. They realized that they were in the wrong place - not Boreham Caverns but an unknown, unexplored and unmapped section: ("We're in the wrong f--kin' cave!"). Juno admitted to everyone: "It hasn't got a name. It's a new system. I wanted us all to discover it. No one's ever been down here before." The six were very concerned that there wouldn't be a way out of the chamber.
The first real issue was when Holly fell into a deep cave pit and snapped the bone of her leg that protruded through the skin. A makeshift splint was constructed, enabling her to weakly and painfully limp along.
The initial intimations of horror was a quick appearance to Sarah of a hairless, pale creature in the distance drinking water. The horrors were revealed to be predatory, hairless, sharp-toothed, whitish, carnivorous humanoid underground beasts called "crawlers" roaming in the thick darkness, who could quickly scale up the walls of the cave. Sarah explained:
"They're totally blind, and judging from what we've seen, I'd say they use sound to hunt with - like a bat. And they've evolved perfectly to live down (here) in the dark."
The creatures began to attack them relentlessly in the maze-like, entrapping lair. Holly was the first to have her throat lethally ripped out by one of the crawlers. As everyone fled, Sarah fell into another pit and was knocked unconscious. Juno was viciously attacked by the beast that killed Holly, and after slashing the blood-thirsty creature with her pick-axe, she killed a second creature jumping onto her. And then as she was startled, she quickly turned around to strike another feared 'crawler,' and realized to her horror that she had swung her pick-axe and accidentally speared Beth in the neck. As she was struck, Beth grabbed Juno's necklace, and was left to die by the shocked Juno who fled.
The ravenous creatures attacked, mauled and devoured Holly's body. Sarah and some of the others realized that if they held perfectly still, they couldn't be detected by the creatures. They were blind like bats, who used clicking sounds to echo-locate and identify their surroundings. Juno stabbed and killed one of the humanoids that attacked Sam and Rebecca. Sarah came upon the dying Beth who claimed Juno had stabbed her, and that Juno's necklace (with the words "Love Each Day" inscribed on it - the motto of Sarah's dead husband Paul) was a gift from Paul. It revealed a possible affair between Juno and Paul! Beth begged to be mercy-killed by Sarah, and she obliged by bashing her head in with a large rock.
Moments after killing Beth, one of the younger creatures jumped onto Sarah's back. After she killed the child-like creature, its long-haired beastly mother (with visible breasts) attacked Sarah and together they fell into a blood-filled pool. After a struggle, to protect herself, Sarah reached for a jagged bone and stabbed the creature in the eye - killing it. She also killed a male creature (the beast's mate?) with the same jagged-edged bone.
Elsewhere, Sam and Rebecca were the next two victims of the creatures - Sam had her throat ripped by a ceiling-'crawler' while attempting to climb across a rocky roof with a rope-pulley system to safety, and Rebecca was cannibalized alive and disemboweled when her stomach and throat were ripped open. Juno fled and escaped and reunited with Sarah (who was completely traumatized, covered with blood, and appeared feral). Juno falsely claimed that she had seen Beth die. Sarah and Juno were left to successfully battle four of the creatures in pursuit and a second wave of attackers.
But then the two confronted each other - in a brutal stand-off, fighting each other with their pick-axes. Sarah believed that the untrustworthy Juno had purposely harmed Beth, and was involved with Paul - she showed her Paul's necklace. During their struggle, Juno was seriously injured in the leg by Sarah's pick-axe. The wounded Juno screamed and died (off-screen) when she was surrounded by the creatures. As Juno had left Beth to die, Sarah left Juno to die.
In the ending, Sarah survived after escaping and falling unconscious down a chute into another side cavern. When she awoke, she crawled up a long sloping pile of skeletal bones into the blinding daylight, where she emerged from the ground, took a deep breath of air, and then ran hysterically through the woods to her vehicle. In a panic, she drove away.
After she stopped by the side of the road to puke out the car window, Sarah turned and saw Juno (with a blood-streaked face) in the passenger seat - Sarah screamed - and then the trauma of the vision caused her to awaken underground in the pile of bones within the dead-end cavern. She realized that her escape was only a false hallucination.
In one final vision, she imagined her tragically-killed daughter Jessica's birthday (and a candle-covered birthday cake) as she stared into her torch's flame (her smiling daughter spoke: "Mummy?"), and the camera drew backward into the darkness as her flame began to dim. She had imagined that the flickering flames of her torch were the candles on the cake. The sounds of creatures threatening to attack were heard. The credits played atop a black and white group photo of the six cave-explorers.
[Note: In the North American release, the film ended a minute earlier, at the point where Sarah saw Juno. The UK version was considered too dark for American audiences and was modified.]
Copyright © 1996-2026 Filmsite LLC. All rights reserved.