[QUOTE=Cuckoorex]
As for your question about the plot point:
Beth tells Sarah that Juno “did this to me, she left me here like this.” Sarah is in fact doubtful and probably thinks that Beth is delusional from loss of blood or something, but then Beth gives Sarah the necklace that she pulled off of Juno, the one that says “Love every day” or something like that; it’s the same phrase that Sarah said was something that her husband always used to say. This reveals the affair to Sarah and makes her believe that Juno in fact did betray Beth as well. On top of all of that, Sarah is slowly going mad; the medication she takes early on (before they go into the cave) is most likely an antispychotic, I think. She keeps hearing her daughter laughing in the cave, which is clearly a delusion and by the time that Sarah catches up to Juno she is so traumatized and near-psychotic that she seems almost animalistic, she is acting almost on pure emotion at that point.
[/QUOTE]
[SPOILER]I got the stuff about the affair, and maybe it just gave Sara the excuse she was looking for to kill Juno. But if she had been thinking rationally (as she at least appeared to be in that scene) she would have still realized that there would have been absolutely no motivation for Juno to have killed Beth (at least not that we’re shown in the movie), especially when they’re all busy fighting for their lives in the first place.
Sara going psychotic is something I didn’t pick up on too much (well, except to the degree that anyone who’s already manically depressed is going to go psychotic when they’re stuck in a cave with bloodthirsty killers after them…). If we’re to believe that she’s psychotic though, they didn’t really use this to great effect. I’m picturing a cross between “The Cave” and “The Shining,” with Sara stalking Juno and the others while they both independantly fought off the creatures. That might have been interesting, but we didn’t get any of that till the very last minute.[/SPOILER]
[QUOTE=Cuckoorex]
Those of you who HATED The Descent…who thought it wasn’t scary at all, that you didn’t care about the characters…is there a horror movie you think is far superior to The Descent in those areas? Because as shocked as some of you are that anyone likes The Descent, I am equally shocked that anyone who likes horror movies could hate it as much as it seems you do. Most everyone I’ve talked to, aside from this message board, at least liked if not loved it. I’m flabbergasted!
[/QUOTE]
Well, I didn’t hate it, but I was extremely disappointed and bored by it. Better horror movies? Off the top of my head, “Rosemary’s Baby,” remake of “Invasion of the Body Snatchers,” “Se7en,” “Halloween,” “Texas Chainsaw Massacre,” “The Exorcist,” “Psycho,” “28 Days Later.” Most of those are bona fide classics of the genre, so maybe it’s an unfair comparison. But even compared to lesser movies… I’m going to lose credibility for saying this, but even the recent “Poseidon Adventure” remake, while definitely having problems of its own in terms of characters, dialogue, acting, etc., was more effective than “The Descent” in terms of portraying the claustrophobia of characters stuck in a tight situation. “The Descent” had that one suspenseful scene early on when Sara got stuck in the tunnel, but after that it didn’t even really use the claustrophobia angle much at all.
Really, what made this movie stand out? (Cribbed from something I posted on IMDB):
Plot – Nothing particularly original here. In fact, we’ve had another movie within the past year that has nearly the same plot and setting (“The Cave”, of course, though I didn’t see it so I can’t guarantee). In a more general sense the whole “sympathetic characters trapped in some place with strange mutant people trying to kill them” thing has been done innumerable times.
Character Depth – About the only attempt to give any character depth was killing off Sara’s family at the beginning. A tragedy does not a character make - this is an old, old movie trick. Beyond Sara’s misfortune, what do we really know or care about these characters? Nothing. You’ve got the headstrong one, the one who flips out, the tough one, the tragic one – they’re just cliches, and it’s hard to care about a cliche.
Acting – The leads were okay, but nothing particularly memorable. Maybe it was because they just weren’t given much to work with.
Cinematography – Maybe gains some points here; a cave lends itself to interesting photography and tricks with light and darkness, and they had some fun with it, but there was nothing that really stood out.
Direction/Editing – Fair/Workmanlike. You can only pull the old “thing jumping out of the dark!” trick so often before it gets boring, and this movie crossed that line.
Overall this movie reminded me of that old line about it being both original and good – the original parts weren’t good, and the good parts weren’t original. Alright, I’ll stop talking about it now…
