Shocktober Revisited: The Descent Part 2

Folks, I have good news and bad news. Let's get the bad news out of the way first.

By definition, The Descent: Part 2 is an unnecessary sequel. There is no reason for the film to exist, because the story is predicated on an assumption that director Neil Marshall's original ending to The Descent didn't happen. For you to even buy into The Descent: Part 2, viewers need to go with the truncated "American" ending, where Sarah (Shauna MacDonald) does escape and drives off for that last minute jump scare. The movie tries to play off her escape from the caves in a different way, but it still undermines the original ending, where it's clear she's bonkers and never leaving. But let's say we buy into that for the sake of watching this film - which is not directed or written by Marshall - and simply move forward.

So two days after the cast of The Descent go missing, a police search is underway with media coverage. It turns out that Juno (Natalie Mendoza) is the daughter of a Senator, so there's a pressing urge to find her. When Sheriff Vaines (Gavin O'Herlihy) finds out Sarah made it out and is in a nearby hospital, he drags her - along with his deputy Ellen Rios (Krysten Cummings), a spelunking instructor (Douglas Hodge) and his assistants/students (Joshua Dallas and Anna Skellern) - back into the cave system to find Juno and the other girls. Vaines assumes that Sarah killed Juno on account of all of the blood on her clothes and her semi-catatonic state.

The biggest problems I have with The Descent: Part 2 are in the opening. There's a big hurry to get back into the caves, so Vaines brings Sarah back out to the Appalachians hours after she's taken to the hospital. In fact, there's a pretty good reason to believe she's still sedated considering how choppy the narrative is up front. The other serious issue is Vaines' insistence that instead of re-directing the search in light of this discovery, he instead keeps it hush-hush and brings along an ill-equipped search team. Two police officers with no experience underground (one of whom appears to be the department's psychiatrist), a trauma victim, two students, and only one person who seems to know what he's doing. It doesn't make any sense.

But there is good news. Once the six of them get into the caves again, things get better. While the sense of claustrophobia isn't quite as pervasive as it was in The Descent, when things get tight later in the film, it does finally get unnerving. The unmemorable characters are dispensed with quickly by the Crawlers, and there is a reasonably good sense of tension in the second half of the film, particularly after (SPOILER) Juno turns out to be alive. (one minor point of contention - the opening is pretty clear that they've only been missing two days, one of which is theoretically the day in which the first film takes place, so it's a little odd that Juno goes quite as "feral" as she does when Vaines catches up with her).

Once the teams are split up and Sarah snaps of her "Barbara in Night of the Living Dead" state, it's actually a pretty good movie. Director Jon Harris finds interesting ways to keep the caves fresh, and has the good sense not to mess with what works. The Crawlers aren't really any different than they were in the first film, and that's probably for the best. It's harder to scare viewers when all the really good reveals were used in the first film, but Part 2 finds other ways to keep things moving.

The big one, I have to say, is that the gore in this film is a) all practical, and b) really gross. It's not often that you can have one really good disgusting gore moment, but Part 2 has several. A handful of them build off of deaths from the first film, but there's one moment in particular that I both give the writers and director credit for and found alternately pretty tasteless.

I imagine that most of you remember the "blood pool" scene in The Descent, so you're expecting something like that to happen in the second film. And it does. But it's not blood this time. In fact, it isn't really clear what Sarah and Rios are swimming in until a Crawler wanders over to the edge of the pool, turns around, and shits. Yes, they've been fighting in the toilet. Gross. As stupid as it sounds, the way it's revealed is more revolting than stupid, but it should give you some idea of where Part 2 is willing to go.

The acting is kinda all over the map, but Shauna MacDonald and Natalie Mendoza are still good, and when they finally cross paths again there's a nice moment of grudging respect that either one of them survived. Krysten Cummings emerges from Part 2 as the most memorable character, which is all the better considering a much better surprise ending in this film. I'm not going to spoil it, because I honestly didn't see what ends up happening coming ahead of time. That also bumps the movie into "better than I expected" territory.

Overall, while it's nowhere in the same ball park as The Descent, I have to say that Part 2 is a reasonably fun horror movie, and much better than I was expecting it to be. I thought I'd be getting into another s. Darko "so you won't have to", but this is worth checking out. Since it's going direct to DVD, I don't need to recommend you wait to rent it, because that's really your option. It's quite watchable after a bumpy beginning, and despite the fact that there is no reason for it to exist, The Descent: Part 2 is one of the better unnecessary sequels I've seen.

Blogorium Review - The Descent: Part 2

Folks, I have good news and bad news. Let's get the bad news out of the way first.

By definition, The Descent: Part 2 is an unnecessary sequel. There is no reason for the film to exist, because the story is predicated on an assumption that director Neil Marshall's original ending to The Descent didn't happen. For you to even buy into The Descent: Part 2, viewers need to go with the truncated "American" ending, where Sarah (Shauna MacDonald) does escape and drives off for that last minute jump scare. The movie tries to play off her escape from the caves in a different way, but it still undermines the original ending, where it's clear she's bonkers and never leaving. But let's say we buy into that for the sake of watching this film - which is not directed or written by Marshall - and simply move forward.

Okay, so two days after the cast of The Descent go missing, a police search is underway with media coverage. It turns out that Juno (Natalie Mendoza) is the daughter of a Senator, so there's a pressing urge to find her. When Sheriff Vaines (Gavin O'Herlihy) finds out Sarah made it out and is in a nearby hospital, he drags her - along with his deputy Ellen Rios (Krysten Cummings), a spelunking instructor (Douglas Hodge) and his assistants/students (Joshua Dallas and Anna Skellern) - back into the cave system to find Juno and the other girls. Vaines assumes that Sarah killed Juno on account of all of the blood on her clothes and her semi-catatonic state.

The biggest problems I have with The Descent: Part 2 are in the opening. There's a big hurry to get back into the caves, so Vaines brings Sarah back out to the Appalachians hours after she's taken to the hospital. In fact, there's a pretty good reason to believe she's still sedated considering how choppy the narrative is up front. The other serious issue is Vaines' insistence that instead of re-directing the search in light of this discovery, he instead keeps it hush-hush and brings along an ill-equipped search team. Two police officers with no experience underground (one of whom appears to be the department's psychiatrist), a trauma victim, two students, and only one person who seems to know what he's doing. It doesn't make any sense.

But there is good news. Once the six of them get into the caves again, things get better. While the sense of claustrophobia isn't quite as pervasive as it was in The Descent, when things get tight later in the film, it does finally get unnerving. The unmemorable characters are dispensed with quickly by the Crawlers, and there is a reasonably good sense of tension in the second half of the film, particularly after (SPOILER) Juno turns out to be alive. (one minor point of contention - the opening is pretty clear that they've only been missing two days, one of which is theoretically the day in which the first film takes place, so it's a little odd that Juno goes quite as "feral" as she does when Vaines catches up with her).

Once the teams are split up and Sarah snaps of her "Barbara in Night of the Living Dead" state, it's actually a pretty good movie. Director Jon Harris finds interesting ways to keep the caves fresh, and has the good sense not to mess with what works. The Crawlers aren't really any different than they were in the first film, and that's probably for the best. It's harder to scare viewers when all the really good reveals were used in the first film, but Part 2 finds other ways to keep things moving.

The big one, I have to say, is that the gore in this film is a) all practical, and b) really gross. It's not often that you can have one really good disgusting gore moment, but Part 2 has several. A handful of them build off of deaths from the first film, but there's one moment in particular that I both give the writers and director credit for and found alternately pretty tasteless.

I imagine that most of you remember the "blood pool" scene in The Descent, so you're expecting something like that to happen in the second film. And it does. But it's not blood this time. In fact, it isn't really clear what Sarah and Rios are swimming in until a Crawler wanders over to the edge of the pool, turns around, and shits. Yes, they've been fighting in the toilet. Gross. As stupid as it sounds, the way it's revealed is more revolting than stupid, but it should give you some idea of where Part 2 is willing to go.

The acting is kinda all over the map, but Shauna MacDonald and Natalie Mendoza are still good, and when they finally cross paths again there's a nice moment of grudging respect that either one of them survived. Krysten Cummings emerges from Part 2 as the most memorable character, which is all the better considering a much better surprise ending in this film. I'm not going to spoil it, because I honestly didn't see what ends up happening coming ahead of time. That also bumps the movie into "better than I expected" territory.

Overall, while it's nowhere in the same ball park as The Descent, I have to say that Part 2 is a reasonably fun horror movie, and much better than I was expecting it to be. I thought I'd be getting into another s. Darko "so you won't have to", but this is worth checking out. Since it's going direct to DVD, I don't need to recommend you wait to rent it, because that's really your option. It's quite watchable after a bumpy beginning, and despite the fact that there is no reason for it to exist, The Descent: Part 2 is one of the better unnecessary sequels I've seen.

Looking Forward So That I May Better Look Back

The semester is winding down to a close, and over the next few days I'm actually going to be very busy getting things together for graduate school applications (for long, and honestly stupid, reasons on my part, I won't be going to Chicago for my masters. While I'm about as happy with this as I am with the GRE scores, it is what it is.). However, once all of that business is done, I reckon I'll have the better part of this week to devote to movies before the holidays hit, so I'd like to ask you folks for some input.

It doesn't matter who you are, if you read this blog and there's something you think I should see before the year is out, I want you to leave me a comment. It could be from 2009 or it could be any other movie. I always do a year-end recap, so if there's something I haven't covered that you think I'd like, please let me know.

Right now, I still have the following to catch before the end of the year: Public Enemies, Up, Inglorious Basterds, District 9, The Hangover, World's Greatest Dad, Duplicity, Adventureland, Sunshine Cleaning, (500) Days of Summer, The Taking of Pelham 123, Monsters vs Aliens, and The Brothers Bloom.

That's what I can think of that I'd like to see before 2009 ends. Surely I'm missing something and this is where you come in. The Cap'n doesn't pretend to be a complete cinephile, and I simply can't keep up with everything. Should I look into New York, I Love You? Is a trip in order to catch A Serious Man or Antichrist? You tell me. I want to know.

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As it is, allow me to present a brief list of movies I saw not from 2009 that would make their respective year's "Best of" List:

My Own Private Idaho - I have no idea why I never got around to watching Gus Van Sant's early defining film (long before Good Will Hunting, Psycho, or Milk), but I'm glad I finally did this year. From beginning to end, top to bottom, an excellent film, with an inspired visual style and clever use of William Shakespeare's Henry IV. My only regret is that I hadn't seen this during prior arguments where I'd periodically defend Keanu Reeves, and the death of River Phoenix was a serious loss for film.

The Hit - This film by Stephen Frears (The Grifters, High Fidelity, The Queen) actually made me rescind all the awful things I said about Terence Stamp in The Haunted Mansion - for a little while. It's a crime movie where much of the film is the anticipation of an actual "hit": in this case, of Mobster turned informant Willie Parker (Stamp). After going into hiding in Spain, Willie is found and captured by a hitman (John Hurt) and his driver (a very young Tim Roth), along with an unfortunate visitor (Laura del Sol). Frears plays these characters off of each other in ways you wouldn't expect, but Stamp anchors the film with the steely resolve of a man at peace with his mortality. I'd never heard of The Hit before this spring, but I'm glad I've seen it now.

The Foot Fist Way - Honestly, without The Foot Fist Way, I don't think I would have been ready for Observe and Report. As it is, Jody Hill's first film is a slice of awkwardness that kept me laughing from beginning to end, and it helped me appreciated Danny McBride's other work even more.

Martyrs - Since Martyrs technically came out in 2008, I can't really cover it in the year-end recap. While I still have quibbles about the mid-twist-torture sequence, I cannot begin to shake the final fifteen minutes from the film. The last image remains with me to this day, and to that end, however minor my issues with the movie are, it certainly belongs on this list.

Dog Soldiers - I'd seen The Descent. I'd seen Doomsday. But until this summer, I'd never watched Dog Soldiers, Neil Marshal's low budget debut film. While it's not perfect, I certainly had fun with this twist on werewolf films, and its sense of humor helped keep the budgetary limitations at bay. I don't know what Marshal is working on now, but I wouldn't be shocked to hear it started with "D".

Synechdoche, NY - The critical backlash against this film still puzzles me. I understand that it's not always fun to watch, and at times can be maddeningly esoteric (especially during the more confusing opening scenes), but once Charlie Kaufman's epic about a man realizing his life as performance really gets going, the convoluted eccentricities of the script step aside and you're left with some wonderful character work from everyone in the cast. I was very pleased to finally watch Synechdoche, NY this year, and I regret not watching it when it played in theatres, as its kind will not likely be seen again.

JCVD - A film that was not at all what I expected, but nevertheless a pleasant journey to take into self parody for Jean-Claude Van Damme. The trailers would lead you to believe that JCVD is more of a comedy, designed to embarrass Van Damme, but the truth is that it's a little more like Dog Day Afternoon meets Adaptation with the structure of Memento. While Van Damme is playing himself (or a version of himself), this is a deconstruction of the way audiences see him as an action star / has-been packed into a potboiler heist movie and punctuated with comedy. I wasn't as taken with the monologue as some seem to be (when Van Damme literally rises above the set and directly addresses the camera), but I certainly enjoyed JCVD and hoped it would mean more of its ilk for Van Damme and less Universal Soldier sequels.... sigh.

and finally:

Teenage Mother - What can I say? I can't un-watch Teenage Mother, and I saw it twice in the span of three weeks. It's an average movie with silly moments punctuated by a truly out-of-left-field five minute burst of childbirth, and then things are over. The wildly misleading trailer points you in the opposite direction of the actual story, down to including footage that's nowhere to be found in the film. Clinical footage and attempted rape aside, Teenage Mother is a pretty humdrum movie, made goofy by inexplicable story elements. It's 69 minutes I guarantee you won't forget, so it makes the list.

Boss, on the other hand, does not, for reasons apparent to anyone who saw it with the Cap'n.

I think I teased the lineup for The Greensboro Summer Fest Massacre Part 2 last night and then forgot to follow up on it. There are two reasons stemming from last night's piece as to why:

1. I like to keep things in flux until I really lock down some movies.

2. Partially, I'm really hoping somebody knocks my socks off with a VHS surprise.

Since I haven't actually finalized anything that would last the whole weekend, I thought I'd share some ideas I've been tossing around with others. I'll address the pros and cons of the films below.

Chopping Mall - partying teens break into a mall overnight and run afoul of the Killbots patrolling the premises.

The Werewolf vs. the Vampire Woman - I can't tell you any more than this trailer can.


Dog Soldiers - Neil Marshall's (The Descent) debut film balances a fine line between horror and laughs when a military exercise turns up werewolves.

The Prowler - The slasher movie Tom Savini (Dawn of the Dead, Friday the 13th, Creepshow) is most proud of. It involves a killer with a pitchfork.

Friday the 13th Part 3 (in 3-D) - Featuring a whole host of bad 3-D effects, including laundry pole, joint passing, and spear-gun attack. Also the film where Jason gets his hockey mask.

My Bloody Valentine 3-D - I haven't watched it yet but the word is the film is a hoot for large groups and must be seen in 3-D.

Mega Shark vs Giant Octopus - Cranpire says it's fest worthy, so it has a spot in the lineup.

Legend of the Seven Golden Vampires - Hammer Horror meets Shaw Brothers Chop Sockey when Dracula heads East and Van Helsing enlists the help of kung fu warriors to stop him.

Dracula A.D. 1972 - exactly what it sounds like. May play as a double feature with Blacula.

Alien Apocalypse - Bruce Campbell vs Giant Termites in the future. This Sci-Fi Channel original is even cheesier than it sounds.

Night of the Comet - Space Zombies vs Valley Girls. Need I say more?

Zombie Lake - Cranpire recommended this. I think it's about dead Nazis but is not Dead Snow.

Uncle Sam - Evil Uncle Sam. Nuff said.

The first and major problem that I have is that a lot of these movies aren't horror comedies, which is what Summer Fest is all about. I don't mind scaring the good attendees too, but the July marathon is all about bringing in folks who might not normally sit in for two nights of horror movies. I like to open things up a bit and soften scaredy cats so they might come back for the really creepy stuff in October.

The other problem is that three movies I really want to show - Night of the Creeps, Terrorvision, and House of Long Shadows - aren't readily available. I'm also tempted to bring out old favorites like Slither and Night of the Lepus for repeat performances but want to leave open the possibility of discoveries. After all, that's how we found Teeth and Blood Car during fests past. Or Cranpire could bring something like Dead Heat and surprise us all again!

The final problem is how to figure in certain tv programs that became staples of Summer and Horror Fest: The Simpsons Treehouse of Horror, Invader Zim, a certain Paul Lynde Halloween Special, and newbie Tales from the Darkside. And, of course, Dr. Re-Animator!

Also, dare I add Redneck Zombies? Can our stomachs handle it???

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Voting ends tomorrow at 3 something or other pm, and what I'm seeing so far is a four way tie. I'm back working nights now, folks, so somebody break that tie! I'd love to watch four movies between tonight and Sunday, but it's not going to happen.

The Dreaded Cousin of the Remake: The Unnecessary Sequel!

Before diving right into the subject of "did we really need THAT in high definition?" tomorrow, I thought I'd touch upon a similar subject and revisit the dreaded "unnecessary sequel."

Our first sequel is one I'd honestly forgotten existed, until a review of it popped up online: The Descent 2. There was maybe a 20% chance of getting me to see it in the first place, and that was only because of the Aliens-like premise of a search team going in following the events of The Descent. Then I heard about why they were going in, and there's no reason to watch this movie.

For those of you who haven't seen The Descent, I'm going to have to spoil it a little bit for you: there are technically two endings to the film. Director Neil Marshall had his original ending which is a downer but links up nicely to the beginning of the film, but Lionsgate didn't feel like that ending tested well, so they changed it. In the "American" cut, a dream sequence that precedes the actual ending is now the ending, complete with a last second "jump" scare for the audience. The chief difference between the two is that one implies a character lives and the other one makes it clear there's no hope.

(From here on out I'm going to be kind of deliberately vague in case you want to see The Descent, which I highly recommend.)

The Descent 2 is a sequel to the "American" cut, so I don't even know how it'll be legible to audiences outside of the U.S. Personally speaking, I like the "downbeat" ending more and am a bit surprised the director of this movie (not Neil Marshall) talked the actress into coming back. Let alone two of them. The explanation for the second not-dead character is the impetus for our heroine returning to the caves of Appalachia. Her father is a Congressman or Senator or something like that, so he drags our newly-christened British Ripley back underground with a group of, I don't know, State Troopers? They get lost, monsters attack, it's Aliens in caves.

However, in a movie that pretty much betrays the dynamic between characters in The Descent, the other "should be dead but now isn't" character has become a bad-ass monster killer, just like our lead from the first film. That's dumb in and of itself, but this character is also a) the reason the girls went into the wrong cave in the first place, b) killed one of her friends and lied about it, and c) was the ONE person the heroine from The Descent had the chance to save and DIDN'T! Why would she go back to expose that?

So yeah, any hopes of me wanting to see The Descent 2 are dashed. This sounds like a pointless cash-in on the title by folks not related to the first film, ala s. Darko. Speaking of which...

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As the Cap'n promised, so that you won't have to, I will sit down and watch s. Darko: A Donnie Darko Tale (I swear to you that's the whole title) either on Wednesday or Thursday*, despite the litany of bad reviews I've been seeing. What can I say? I'm a glutton for punishment sometimes, and as horrible of an idea as s. Darko is, the trailer kind of captured the vibe of Donnie Darko. Kind of.

Periodically I'll look into a sequel which is tangentially related to the original film, and while there's not really a reason to care about Samantha Darko's adventures or history of Frank the Bunny sightings, I don't see what other direction they could have gone in. Why they'd do it at all is a question I can answer for you: because anyone who can talk themselves into liking Southland Tales** will probably buy a copy of s. Darko in the hopes it captures some of their obsession with the Donnie Darko universe. The producers knew that, so they made a sequel no one was asking for.

But then again was anyone seriously asking for a Predator movie with Danny Glover and Gary Busey? And look how awesome that turned out to be***!

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That leads us nicely into tomorrow's piece, which will try to answer the question "Why is Predator 2 coming out on Blu Ray instead of, say, The African Queen?" I'll also try to figure out why so many mid-90s action films are available when it's clear that other studio classics have also been remastered in HD but aren't on shelves. See you then.


P.S. I'm terribly saddened to see so many negative reviews of The Limits of Control, the new movie from Jim Jarmusch. Even the ones that try to be positive admit that basically the movie is an exercise of repetition for 116 minutes in order to test how long people will wait for nothing to happen. Bummer.



* Let me be totally honest here. It's probably going to be Thursday because I don't want to be angry before or after the season finale of Dinosaur Island.
** You would have to talk yourself into liking that hodgepodge of bad ideas, and if any fanatic can do it, Darko-heads can. Trust me, I've seen them.
*** Don't get it twisted: s. Darko will not be as awesome as Predator 2, I can promise you that. Also, I'm not insinuating Predator 2 is not awesome because it IS, dammit.

Dispatches from the A.O.S.

I could actually do several more movie reviews right now, but the Cap'n would rather break up that string of entries with something else. Instead of full on reviews or quick reviews that end up being longer than actual reviews, let's just keep things short tonight. Not twitter short, because the whole concept of half-assed typing bothers me.

Really, why do I care that you "just got on the plane and they're making me turn this off"? Really? That's insightful in any way? Twitter reminds me of text messaging on a much larger scale, and just about as interesting.

Okay, I really didn't mean to get on my twitter soapbox there, so let's just move on for the sake of keeping things movie-centric.

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Frost/Nixon was a mildly entertaining film that dramatized an event where some of the actual people are still alive. What's kind of frustrating is that Ron Howard stages these mock interviews with the participants "today" or some time after the actual David Frost / Richard Nixon conversations, but he uses the same actors. The only thing different is a heavily blown out image and the actors (Oliver Platt, Sam Rockwell, and Kevin Bacon spring to mind immediately) have different haircuts. It's not that Howard shouldn't have done this or should have used the actual living participants; the problem is that these "interviews" don't serve much of a purpose in the film. Instead, they continually point out the "importance" of what we're seeing.

I'm making this out like I don't like the movie, and I did enjoy it on some levels. The cast is very good and the dramatization is compelling. What I find so strange is not the movie itself but Michael Sheen. For some strange reason, I can never make the mental connection that the man in The Queen, Kingdom of Heaven and Frost/Nixon is the same actor that plays Lucian, leader of all Werewolves in the Underworld films. All three of them.

Sheen is also going to be in the Twilight sequel, but this time playing a vampire. That just boggles my mind for some reason. Maybe it's that he takes all of it so seriously, whether he's Tony Blair or Lucian the Lycan. Too weird.

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Speaking of Werewolves, I saw Dog Soldiers on Blu Ray (which reminds me that I need to write an article about "do we really need that in high definition?"*) and while it's not the kind of movie you're going to say "Hey, let me show off my set up with this!", the rather low budget debut from Neil Marshall (The Descent, Doomsday) looks better than I'd seen it on dvd. The movie itself is still a lot of fun, even if the budgetary constraints show when it comes to the werewolves themselves. I do always find it weird that the movie stars Tommy from Trainspotting and Sean Pertwee, son of Jon "The Third Doctor" Pertwee.

Further inspection leads me to discover that in addition to being in Trainspotting, Kevin McKidd was also Lucius Veronus on Rome, has been on a season of Grey's Anatomy, he was the star of the short lived (but loved by my dad) Journeyman, he was in Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, and he appeared alongside Michael Sheen in Kingdom of Heaven. How very curious that it took Dog Soldiers for me to remember Kevin McKidd's voice from thirteen years ago.

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I have still not seen Star Trek. Until my financial aid refund arrives, I doubt it will. But like a true nerd, I suppose I can pore through the comic book several more times and parse out secret messages. Or watch the first season in HD, with or without the new effects shots. You hip kids can have your Chris Pine's and your Sylar with pointy-ears for now; I'll take my cheesy man-vs-lizard fight and Dr. McCoy chasing the White Rabbit.

Speaking of the White Rabbit, guess who's playing that role in Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland?

If you guessed Michael Sheen, you've been paying attention to the secret thread of tonight's blogorium!

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Finally: I like my USA Up All Night piece too - that's why I brought it over from the old blogorium - but why is it suddenly popular with Google Search? Seriously, three hits in a week is a LOT for such an obscure blog as this one. I'm glad you're reading, but do feel free to comment any time.

Back tomorrow with Trailer Sunday.


* I'm not speaking about Dog Soldiers specifically, even though the placement of that digression implies they're connected.

Horror Fest Day Two: The Descent

I'm going to be quick about this, because we're about to start Planet Terror, but The Descent was a nice change of pace after Return to Horror High.

After watching that absolute garbage, Neil Marshall's tale of spelunking gone horribly awry would've seemed great even if it wasn't. Fortunately, The Descent is even better the more times you watch it. We finally registered our first legit "jump" scare about halfway in, but the monster reveals aren't necessarily effective if the first part in the caves doesn't work.

Marshall really plays into every claustrophobic fear a person could have setting up The Descent, and those sequences in the cave work like gangbusters. The cave-in, the tight quarters, the impossibly close camera work; everything serves the purpose of making that cave as impossibly scary as it can be, THEN the fucking bat monsters arrive. And since he uses them sparingly at first, they're pretty freaky.

But what I like about The Descent isn't just the cave, or the monsters even, but the fact that the characters have relationships with each other that don't break down into stupid bickering or are dropped when it's inconvenient. Oh, and that ending.... Remember how I said 1408 had an appropriate, albeit dark ending? Well, The Descent's ending is pitch perfect, and literally and figuratively dark.

Okay, time to lighten the atmosphere with half of Grindhouse. Be back in a bit...