OK - I've been lauding this flick for months - MONTHS(!), since I saw it across the pond. And it is excellent, really, no bullshit, and without virtually any special effects or movie stars, it still packs a wallop - if you're into the genre, that is.
That being said, I read that the American version has a different ending than the original British version (I think I know what they have done, I'm not positive, but I'm pretty sure). It's not a catastrophic difference (think of the two subtle but different endings to 'Blade Runner' and the 'Director's Cut' of the film), but I personally think it' a little bit of a cop out.
Nevertheless, I HIGHLY recommend this movie - it's still the best movie I've seen in the past year.
This message has been edited by oddtodd7 on Aug 8, 2006 11:37 AM
Really actually totally bothers me that they screwed with the ending. It would have left so much more to the imagination instead of just putting a exclamation point on the 'scary'ness
This message has been edited by oddtodd7 on Aug 7, 2006 12:18 AM
Yeah... (HOPEFULLY) when the movie comes out on DVD, the original ending will be available on the Special Features - I mean, c'mon, if THAT isn't a 'special feature', what is, right?
But as far as the review goes, I gotta admit - nail on head (and kudos for choosing not to see 'Ron Burgundy's slow-witted alter ego NASCAR' movie)
All in all, I was definitely way pumped up with closed off awfulness for the first chunk of this film. But the deeper they got into the caves the more I wish the movie just left them alone. The uninvited guests were way overkill and sort of unnecessary. They could have stayed home or deep in the shadows. I wouldn't have missed them. Don't bother with the "horror". Bottom line, no jump out schlocky blood spurt is gonna freak me out more than being alone in a cave with no way out.... while the light on my helmet grows dimmer and dimmer-- and the noises all around get louder and weirder.
I really loved this movie... there was so much going on - including the affair going-on between Juno and Sarah's husband. Lots of "descent" - both physical and moral.
The fact that I later learned the original ending (which was just an add-on to what we'd seen) was icing on the cake - just one more thing to ponder.
I believe this movie will become a classic - and it put Hostel to shame (what a true laugh that was!).
And, I dug it that they discovered they were not alone... the creatures were scary as hell!
AS friend of mine has the British DVD of THE DESCENT. It, apparently, is available already if you track it down. I saw the movie in the theater, here in NYC, yesterday. I thought it was really good (and I am a big horror movie fan who is usually disappointed). Without special effects, the film created such an atmosphere of claustrophobia and anxiety and fear - just from the caves alone - that I was riveted.
I am dying to know how the original ending is different. Can anyone tell me?
Even if the DVD is released in the UK, it probably isn't coded in US format so unless you have a UK DVD player [I think it's in PAL format but not 100% sure] you will just have to tap your foot impatiently and wait.
Ah for a UK movie that's released in the US the way the original director intended. Why oh why do they do that?
I had sent this to Todd because he had referred to the 5 women... and I believe there were 6. At the of this review a brief description of the UK ending is given.
Point is ... in our version, Sarah escapes and in the UK version, her escape is a hallucination. She is still in the cave ... but it is probably just as well, because what does she have left? She will soon be joining her dead daughter.
The review:
The film follows a group of six women on a caving expedition in the Appalachian Mountains. Sarah (Shauna Macdonald) is recovering from a car accident a year ago which killed her husband and daughter. She and her friend Beth (Alex Reid) are invited to the Appalachian Mountains by friend Juno (Natalie Mendoza). There they join up with Holly (Nora-Jane Noone), and two sisters, Sam (MyAnna Buring) and Rebecca (Saskia Mulder).
After stopping in a cabin for the night, they drive to the caves and begin to explore. A cave-in traps them, and it is revealed that Juno has brought them to an unexplored cave system, in a misguided effort to bring the group closer together. They continue on, their only hope is to find another exit. Holly breaks her leg in a fall, and as the others assist her, Sarah wanders off and sees a pale humanoid figure drinking from a puddle of sedimentary water. It disappears into the darkness when it senses her, and when Sarah tells the others, they dismiss it as a hallucination.
As they progress through the cave system, they come under attack from the creatures (dubbed 'crawlers'). Holly is killed, and Juno stabs Beth through the throat by accident. The remaining members are separated, and try to survive the environment and the stalking crawlers. Sarah hallucinates about her dead daughter at several points, and as she explores the caves, comes across Beth, who is mortally wounded. She shows Sarah a pendant of Juno's as proof that Juno had been having an affair with Sarah's husband, and at her request, Sarah euthanises Beth.
Sam and Rebecca are both killed by crawlers, with Juno narrowly avoiding the same fate. She meets up with Sarah, and the two make their way onwards together, only to find a group of crawlers between them and a possible exit. A fight ensues, the women kill the creatures, and afterwards Sarah cripples Juno and leaves her for the crawlers. Fleeing, Sarah falls and is knocked unconscious. She dreams of escaping, only to awake once more in the cave, hallucinating that her daughter is there with her. Crawler screams are heard, and the film ends.
To begin, let me make clear I enjoyed this movie -- it's a far more dynamic, multi-layered horror flick than 'Saw' or 'Hostel' or any number of recent torture-fests, and I enjoyed writer-director Neil Marshall's 'Dog Soldiers' as well.
However, the crawlers (as they're termed in the credits) are pretty nonsensical:
1. They hunt by sound to the exclusion of all other senses; apparently they have no sense of smell (they are repeatedly very close to human beings who've been extering themselves and presumably sweating like frightened pigs but don't notice them), a very crude sense of touch (one puts his hand on a living woman's head, which is softer and warmer than a skull, but doesn't seem to notice), and no awareness of temperature (one is right next to a burning flame but doesn't seem at all aware of it; pretty odd considering blind people can tell when they're next to a light bulb due to the temperature).
2. Apparently the crawlers emerge from the caves to hunt for prey, which makes sense because there doesn't seem to be much down there for them to eat. But if that's the case, being blind and blindingly white would put them at a significant disadvantage in the forest, which is full of creatures who are not blind and would presumably see the crawlers a mile away -- and hunting by sound in a dense forest makes much less sense than navigating by sound through a cavern.
The movie gets us past this through sheer kinetic momentum (and lots and lots of gore), but Mr. Marshall might want to think his monsters through next time.
From the american version....In my opinion....I think it could be possible that Sarah didn't kill Juno because of the affair or because of what she did to Beth or the girls.....I think Sarah did realize that Junos real intention was to kill her...
1) Juno knew the risk of going to that cave...she didn't care.
2) Remember, at some early stage of the movie Juno said that ii would be great to name the cave "Sarah" or something like that...
3) Perhaps Juno blamed Sarah for Paul's dead and It seems Juno did care or love him. "we all lost something in that crash". We don't know the intensity of that relation. Remember the necklace "Live each Day"
4) At some point she said to the other girls that she was not going to leave without Sarah, but remember, she did leave Beth behind....Maybe she wanted make sure she didn't make it.
It seems that Sarah opened her eyes to all this after Beth told her about Juno and that's why Sarah stabbed her....
I too had a little problem with the sensory perception of the 'Crawlers'. Blind I get. And they are enticed by sound, but not smell? WTF? A 30 second plot-device would have cleared that right up.
Now then, I have to address a couple things - and these are only my opinion (but I still think they are right)
1) When Sarah reaches the car at the end, Juno isn't literally sitting in the passenger seat (it's just Sarah wigging out) - c'mon Juno had a friggin' axe through her leg for Christsake.
2) While I concur that the title of the film has subtext - I don't buy for a second that the 'Crawlers' didn't actually exist and was merely Sarah going psycho and killing everyone (there are way too many plotholes for that to happen and Sarah DID have companions and/or alibis to her whereabouts when the Crawlers began feasting elsewhere in the cavern.
3) I dunno if anyone else recognized it, but the music was created by the same guy that did the music for 'Memento' and 'Insomnia' - which I think gave the film a great eerie quality as a whole.
I don't think Juno knew what was in the cave. She wanted to spelunk a new cave that wasn't on the maps. She had scouted the area and found the new cave but I doubt she would have gone down there unarmed if she knew there were dangerous crawlers. The fact that the cave with that huge opening wasn't on the maps should have tipped her that something was odd. The mouth of that cave was huge. Apparently, everyone that ever went into the cave never came out.
Another thing - I got the sense that Juno and Holly were lesbian lovers. They foreshadowed Juno's affair with Sarah's husband. When she was pushed in the water by Sarah at the beginning, he rushed to her with a blanket and he was a little too tender with her. Anyway, the way that Juno rushed away when Sarah was in the hospital and didn't attend the funeral shows that she was grieving. I think she was hurt so much by his death that she decided to move to the island of Lesbos with Holly. Juno & Holly had an exchange in the cabin that hinted at a relationship between them, Holly made an anti-male statement that kind of established her as a lesbian, she had a lesbian look, and during the death scene with Holly, Juno seemed particularly affected.
The reason Juno was adamant that she wouldn't leave with Sarah was because she felt guilty about the affair as well as distant from Sarah. She couldn't confide in Sarah (who seemed to be her best friend based on the opening scene) about her grief. Still she kept that necklace that he gave her. A careful person would have hidden it. I think Juno wanted Sarah to revive her sense of adventure (remember the first rafting scene). That's why she picked an unexplored cave. She wanted to name the cave Sarah like explorers used to do in the 1800's in Africa. Juno wanted desperately to have the old Sarah back. She had lost her lover, she felt guilt about having an affair with her best friend's husband, she had resorted to lesbianism to cope, and she wanted things to be as close as they were to the good ole days.
BTW - I'm in love with Natalie Mendoza. Did anyone notice that her character's name (Juno) is the same as Tia Carerre from "True Lies?" I think Mendoza bears a resemblance to a younger Carerre. Her character was somewhat similar to Tia's Juno too.
IF you thought the movie was good, check out the book by the same name. I just read it, and the movie was based loosly on the first chapter. it was an awesome book
