THE DESCENT

Sarah, one year after a terrible accident took away her husband and daughter, is convinced by a friend to participate in a speleological excursion in the caves of the Appalachian Mountains, along with four other friends. The six women will soon realize that those places had been unexplored until then and, following a landslide that will seal the entrance, they will be forced to find another way out, venturing deeper and deeper. Soon, a tribe of carnivorous humanoids living underground will appear: in addition to looking for an exit, the group of friends will also have to survive the furious attacks of the monsters. After having the honor of closing the 62nd Venice Film Festival, "The Descent" also lands in our cinemas, giving the big screen audience the opportunity to discover the macabre genius of Neil Marshall, a brilliant British director in his second experience behind the camera after the cult film "Dog Soldiers". If in his previous hilarious film, Marshall combined military action with the fairy tale of Goldilocks, creating a perfect mix between grotesque irony and lupine horror in splatter sauce, with "The Descent" the intentions are undoubtedly more serious. Having completely set aside irony, Marshall throws us from the prologue into a tragic and mournful atmosphere with a dramatic and bloody accident that takes the life of the protagonist's husband and daughter; followed by the nightmares and torments that accompany the woman until the impact with nature that reminds us (after an aerial panorama like "Shining") of the bucolic atmosphere that surrounds the four protagonists of "A Quiet Week-End of Fear". Then, from the moment the six women set foot in the caves, there is a stifling air, we immerse ourselves in the darkness and sink into absolute claustrophobia, accentuated by tunnels, cracks, natural interstices to cross, in which to crawl to find an exit (one of the most tense moments of the entire film: the sequence in which Sarah is trapped in a tunnel while the cave begins to collapse). Then they appear, creatures hungry for flesh (human or animal, for them there is no difference) that climb on the rocks and jump from one ledge to another with great agility: completely blind, with whitish skin and able to communicate through chilling screams. But what the six women must fear is not only the tribe of cannibal humanoids, nor the inhospitable place they have ventured into, nor the darkness that surrounds everything, but themselves, the secrets they have hidden for a long time and their desire for survival that makes them similar to the monsters they must escape. Technically, the film is impeccable: excellent Marshall's direction, capable of creating tension and a real sense of claustrophobia; good level the performances of the cast (composed of actresses little known to the public), among which stands out Shauna Macdonald in the role of the protagonist; effective the photography that tints everything with pitch black, relying only on the lights coming from the torches and the flares of the group of speleologists. The monsters present a very suggestive makeup that makes them disgusting and slimy just right. Great merit of the film is then that of presenting a considerable dose of gore that flows, often and willingly, into splatter (the scene in which the protagonist fights with a creature in a pool full of blood to then emerge from the deep as Martin Sheen did in "Apocalypse Now", from anthology), but without ever falling into the easy and complacent irony, resulting as brutal and disturbing as rarely happens. In conclusion, "The Descent" is an adult, claustrophobic, and visceral horror film, which involves from the beginning to the end, dragging the viewer into a spiral of tension, violence, and atrocity and exploiting the most atavistic fears that man can manifest: the dark, closed spaces, heights, the unknown. One of the best horrors of the year 2005. Warmly recommended.