By Chris Snellgrove | Published
A funny thing happens when you watch enough horror movies: ironically, it becomes harder and harder to find a movie that Really scares you. That’s because very few scary films have truly original ideas behind them, and far too many modern horror films disappear into a self-congratulatory miasma of Whedonesque references and cutesy jokes. Luckily, there’s a terrifying modern monster classic you can stream for free: The descentnow available on Tubi.
The descent into terror
Even by horror standards, The descent has a simplified narrative, focusing on the misadventures of a group of women who decide to go spelunking in the Appalachian Mountains of North Carolina. The trip may be the perfect solution to take our main character’s mind off the grief she continues to experience following the tragic loss of her husband and daughter the previous year, but things go wrong when everyone ends up in an unknown cave system. But everyone soon has more than just trauma and is lost in worry when they run into horrible goblin-like creatures waiting to kill anything they can get their claws on.
Part of what makes The descent What is interesting as a horror film is that (apart from the monstrous “robots”) all the characters are played by women. This includes Shauna Macdonald (best known for the TV show Scary) and Natalie Mendoza (best known for the TV show Babylon Hotel). The film also stars Alex Reid (formerly known for the television series Ultimate Strength), MyAnna Buring (best known for her appearance in the Twilight films and the Witcher series).
From a box office perspective, The descent is one of those scary movies that was made on a relatively small budget and made (relative to its cost) a significant profit. The film was produced on an estimated budget of £3.5 million (or just over $4.3 million) and grossed a monstrous $57.1 million at the box office. It was enough to warrant a sequel, but The descent 2 ended up being a critical and commercial failure.
Fortunately, the original film is loved by critics and audiences. On rotten tomatoes, The descent has a critical rating of 87 percent, with critics generally praising the film’s strong performances and intensely claustrophobic vibes. Via Popcornmeter, the film also has an audience rating of 76%, proving that it’s not one of those horror films that critics love and despite audiences (like almost all other “high horror” films).
Serious nightmares
As for me, I loved it The descent for many of the same reasons…the all-female cast may seem flattering, but it was done to separate this film from other horror films (like director Neil Marshall’s previous film Soldier dogs). Throughout the film, the characters truly feel like friends whose bonds are constantly tested by the strange situation they find themselves in. Plus, while they’re not exactly household names, each character comes across as unique thanks to the actors’ creative performances. .
But the real reason to watch The descent is that it is genuinely terrifying and manages to deliver visceral scares by simply refining a few classic horror formulas into something exciting and new. We have characters who are trapped, but in a cave in the mountains rather than a cabin in the woods; we have monsters that look like Gollum’s third cousin, but they’re treated with deadly seriousness. Add to that a horrible beginning and a dark ending (especially in the unrated version) and you have a film that is sure to haunt you… one that we really don’t recommend trying to watch before bed, unless until you are ready to watch it. serious nightmares.
Will you find The descent as terrifying as me, or is this a movie you’d rather throw into an unexplored cave system? You won’t know until you take the plunge. Once this claustrophobic classic gets its claws into you, be warned…you won’t be able to look away and you’ll Never forget what you see.
