7 Days of Halloween: The Descent

I once went spelunking in rural Pennsylvania when I was in Boy Scouts. I feel very fortunate that the experience was nothing like "The Descent." In my experience, like that of virtually every human in recent human history who has gone caving, the scariest thing is when your guide tells you to turn off your helmet light so that you can see just how dreadfully dark it is under the earth. I might have been as pale as the grotesque creatures featured in "The Descent," the 2006 horror movie directed by Neil Marshall about a spelunking trip gone wrong, but I'm fairly certain there were none of them when I went caving, and if there were, they certainly left us alone.

Forgive me for the digression, but "The Descent" made me think of the recent discovery of homo neladi in a cave in South Africa, and how it has not provided an answer as to how those skeletal remains got there in that secluded cave area. Some think they were deliberately put there as burial grounds, some think they became accidentally trapped there, some think they were deliberately trapped there. Either way, it would be frightening to be trapped there with no way out and such primitive, if any, technology. Just imagine adding dozens of bat people who only make their way to the surface to hunt. That's the situation six British women find themselves in.

The six of them meet in North Carolina for their epic trip. Their leader, Juno (Natalie Mendoza), explains the symptoms they could experience while being down there: claustrophobia, hallucinations, and the like. (It does make one wonder why people do this sort of thing in the first place.) Predictably, the women become trapped and find themselves in the wrong cave. Being lost in the woods, like in "The Blair Witch Project," is scary enough. I can't possibly imagine being lost in a cave. Juno reveals to them that she left the guide book in the car, and they argue and shout for a while. They find caving equipment from a hundred years ago and ancient, possibly pre-history, paintings. Fascinating to see, perhaps, but something else is wrong: not only are they lost, but they are being hunted. Something is clearly down there; some kind of humanoids that make odd echolocation noises to hunt for their food. They are some kind of creatures who've evolved to live in the dark caves. In a movie sense, they're like a hybrid of vampire, zombie, and general monster, biting the neck, eating the body, and hiding in the dark. There's a pit of graves that only further reveals the reality that they are in terrible danger. Like in many other horror movies, they become separated; it becomes fight-or-flight to the extreme.

The caves are a convincing set design at Pinewood Studios by Simon Bowles that make you wonder if they actually filmed it in a cave or not, and there are thunderous trumpets provided by David Julyan's score that heighten the intensity of the scenes. Sam McCurdy's cinematography is also spot-on; occasionally, we are able to see what the characters see in the dark through their hand-held camera, and these are the spookiest moments. Obviously, the makeup effects by Paul Hyett of the creatures are terrific. And there's lots--lots--of blood, an almost "Carrie"-like amount. Despite all these great elements, it doesn't equal a great movie.

The biggest flaw is this: Caves are scary. Being in the dark is scary. Being hunted is scary. Being hunted by those things (whatever they are) is scary. But if your movie, with all those elements, is not scary enough that you need to insert nightmare sequences and characters accidentally bumping into each other, bats and birds flying out, and other formulaic parts, you've done something wrong. Nightmare sequences in horror movies, in my opinion, are usually cheap. They feel almost as if someone has mandated their insertion simply to fill a scare quota. So, too, it is here. The main character, Sarah (Shauna Macdonald) experienced an awful tragedy a year before while white-water rafting when her husband and young child were killed in a car accident. This is a scary enough scenario that nightmare sequences are unnecessary.

That doesn't mean I didn't like "The Descent." I did, and I recommend it. I actually thought it would be far scarier. It oddly brought back memories of my Boy Scout days, but it also made me think that I probably would never go spelunking again. It's a wonder if "The Descent" did for caving what "Psycho" did for showers.