Picturenose

Wholly terrifying

In terms of that cold heart-thump, the scare that’s so sought after by strange people such as myself but so rarely found, David Fincher’s Se7en (1995) is probably as good as it got during the past decade or so, at least in the US, while Fabrice du Welz’s Belgian horror show, Calvaire (2004) kept up the European end.

But Brit director Neil Marshall (Dog Soldiers (2002)), has also proved himself a pro recently in what is, along with comedy, the most difficult genre to get right.

The Descent is a revelation. Like all the very best rural horror, it has the simplicity of the grim campfire tale of time immemorial, told in breathless tones while monstrous shadows lurk and caper out of the corner of your eye.

Sarah (Shauna MacDonald), Juno (Natalie Mendoza), Beth (Alex Reid), Rebecca (Saskia Mulder), Sam (MyAnna Buring) and Holly (Nora-Jane Noone) are adrenaline-addict friends reunited - a year after a terrible tragedy befell Sarah, they’re back together in the Appalachian mountains for some bonding, boozing and serious potholing. Trouble is, lead adventurer Juno has decided to take her friends into uncharted cave territory - even worse, she doesn’t tell her chums until they’re lost underground. Bad move. Because there’s something else down there in the dark with them. Several somethings. With claws. And teeth. And nothing else to do but eat…

Keeping the mush to a minimum and allowing the naturalistic acting to get you on their side, Marshall makes you empathise with the girls from very early on. Their ritualistic boozing session and good-natured bitching would have been contrived in lesser hands, but, thanks to the tight script and the director’s refusal to flinch from the core of the story, you like them at first, cross your fingers for them later, then scream with them to the finish. Horror always has a problem when it comes to showing the monsters, but here again, such is the fast-crawling, twitchy hideousness of the underground dwellers (and I’m saying nothing more), the fear factor is reduced very little by their repeated appearances.

And then, just when you think that Marshall might be letting the viewer off the hook, when the format appears to have thrown its last bloody bone at you, the tone changes, giving a denouement that is bloody scary, haunting, yet somehow strangely uplifting. Come, take a leap in the dark…if you dare.

Previously published on UP Front Brussels.

99 mins.