[8]

Neil Marshall follows up his auspicious feature directorial debut, Dog Soldiers, with this all-female plunge into the claustrophobic depths of Appalachian caves. The Descent reminds me of From Dusk Til Dawn in that it’s really two completely different movies jammed together at the middle. The first half is harrowing enough just watching the women climb, crawl and wiggle their way deeper and deeper into the Earth. You just know something awful is going to happen. And then the movie takes a weird, supernatural turn by dropping the ensemble right into a nest of, shit, I don’t know what they are — underground vampires? Throwing the audience for a loop doesn’t always work, but it works here.

The cast is very good all around, led by Shauna Macdonald as a young widow recovering from the death of her family in a car accident. There’s a rift between Macdonald’s character and another woman, Juno (Natalie Mendoza), that doesn’t make narrative sense to me, but I love pretty much everything else about this movie — especially David Julyan’s brooding score. From it’s tragic flashback opening to the final imagery, The Descent oozes and drips with a sublime melancholy.

With Alex Reid, Saskia Mulder, MyAnna Buring, and Nora-Jane Noone.