16: The Descent

Sometimes, life just keeps piling bad stuff on top of each other. Sometimes, you try to get over the death of your husband by going cave diving with friends in the worlds most claustrophobic cave. Sometimes there is a cave-in. Sometimes, you find out that your friends are untrustworthy and cruel. Sometimes the claustrophobic cave with the cruel friends and dead husband is also full of monsters. The Descent is just one bad day that won't end (because you can't see the sun down in the cave).

This film uses the cave system to great effect. Seemingly endless black chambers turn into impossibly small alcoves the group has to squeeze through which turn into steep crevices too deep to see the bottom. The cave oozes atmosphere, and there is a real sense of danger that never really leaves the place. Once you start getting into the more monstrous areas, like a pool of blood covered in viscera or a mountain of bones, it feels like a natural progression. The cave is the antagonist here, and the monsters are just one part of it.

But the monsters themselves are what really makes the movie work. It is suggested that the monsters were just humans that had adapted to the underground environment. This really fits the tone of the film, this idea that the monsters were just humans that had to be wild to survive in the cave. While they never really become sympathetic, there is enough to make you question the morality of slaughtering them. Once the characters in the film start "adapting" to the cave, becoming desperate and vicious, the film really gets interesting.

When the film gets going, the people start turning nasty. Old wounds rise to the surface and old grudges start getting settled. People get separated from each other and lost and abandoned. One person breaks her leg early on, and the question of whether or not to leave her weighs on the survivors. In its own way, the cave claims each of them, body or soul.