The Descent

[Butter]

Anyone seen this yet? It's getting terrific reviews, and I watched it over the weekend ( a rare outing to the theater without children, plus I talked the wife into it).

I am not entirely sure why the reviews are so universally positive, but I thought it was very good, despite the last 5 seconds (which I won't reveal for obvious reasons). My wife thought the last couple of minutes seemed a bit out of line with the rest of the movie, but I wanted to hear some other opinions.

[Drake]

I just heard a thing on NPR this morning where the director stated that the UK version had a different ending (something like cutting out the last minute of the movie). It got very mixed reviews, so he added the last minute back in for the US release.

[Honolulu_Blue]

I saw it a couple weeks ago. I liked it. It was definitely better than your standard horror fare. The characters were much more well developed than is usual for an ensemble-type horror movie cast. I liked how the movie was about 6 women who like to do extreme sports type stuff (rafting, rock-climbing, cave-diving, etc.) without really making it a movie about "women who like to do extreme sports type stuff." It didn't beat you over the head with any type of message. It just made it all sort of matter-of-fact and, given the characters, it was very believable.

I think the movie was actually scarier before the monsters really made their first appearance. The claustrophbia stuff, getting lost in the caves, the panic, the breaking of limbs, all of that stuff were much more intense and provided more "frights" than the monsters themselves.

I loved the "initial" encounter with them, it was a great scene from beginning to end, but the wheels slightly came off the wagon and it seemed like the director wanted to go for the "gross out" more than genuine horror.

I had no issue at all with the ending. I thought it worked well. I read about the "original" ending (one showed in Europe) and actually think the new ending works a lot better. From what I've read, the original ending doesn't work too well for me.

I'd give 3 out of 4 stars. A solid, but unspectacular horror movie. I saw "The Cave" the day after (just happened to be on cable) and, given the similar premises, The Descent is 10x's better.

Butterman, if you want to discuss "spoilerish" things feel free to shoot me a PM.

[Raiders Army]

I was blown away by the movie. I had seen Pulse the day prior so I didn't have huge expectations.

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The movie started out slowly, almost too slowly. It was 40 minutes into the movie until they realized they weren't in the cave they thought they were in. It was another 20 minutes until the "monsters" came out. I also did not get the beginning of the movie where the surviving chick's husband was helping Juno out of the raft and the whole "Love each day" line. I read about it on themoviespoiler.com and realized that was a part of the story I totally missed.

[sabotai]

I have not seen it yet, but I will say this...

Natalie Mendoza = HAWT (we need a Hot or Not for her!!)

[bulletsponge]

I have not seen it yet, but I will say this...

Natalie Mendoza = HAWT (we need a Hot or Not for her!!)


*runs to google*

[Jonathan Ezarik]

The claustrophbia stuff, getting lost in the caves, the panic, the breaking of limbs, all of that stuff were much more intense and provided more "frights" than the monsters themselves..

I agree with this. I was sweating when they were going through the tight passages and the scaling across the chasm, forget it.

I have to disagree with the well developed characters part. The only ones that had any depth were the two main ones. The rest of them were interchangeable, especially when the action took off.

All in all, it was an okay movie. I could have done without the ending, though. It felt cheap to me.