The Descent

2005
R
1h 39m

IMDb RATING

7.2/10

255K

YOUR RATING

POPULARITY

371

Natalie Mendoza, Shauna Macdonald, Saskia Mulder, Alex Reid, Nora-Jane Noone, and MyAnna Buring in The Descent (2005)

Home Video Trailer from Lionsgate Home Entertainment

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Monster Horror Mountain Adventure Psychological Thriller Adventure Horror Thriller

A caving expedition goes horribly wrong, as the explorers become trapped and ultimately pursued by a strange breed of predators.A caving expedition goes horribly wrong, as the explorers become trapped and ultimately pursued by a strange breed of predators.A caving expedition goes horribly wrong, as the explorers become trapped and ultimately pursued by a strange breed of predators.

See production info at IMDbPro

IMDb RATING

7.2/10

255K

YOUR RATING

POPULARITY

371

See production info at IMDbPro

Awards
- 8 wins & 22 nominations

Trivia
Twenty-one separate cave sets were built for the film. These were carefully reused with different camera angles, set dressing and lighting to suggest a nearly endless collection of interconnected tunnels and caverns. For realism, the makers often limited the lighting of the sets to light sources that the protagonists brought with them, such as flashlights, helmet lights and light sticks.

Goofs
All of the spines in the various bone piles throughout the movie have the spines intact and the inter vertebral disks still present in the spines. Inter vertebral disks, however, are cartilage, not bone, and would have decayed (especially given that there is no clothing, hair, or fur in the bone piles, meaning that the bones are quite old). The spine segments should be scattered and in pieces, not in long segments.

Quotes
Beth: I'm an English teacher, not fucking Tomb Raider.

Crazy credits
The creature's snarling sound can be heard at the end of the credits.

Alternate versions
SPOILER: The endings of the US and UK versions differ. In the end, Sarah wakes up at the bottom of the cave, crawls out, and makes her way back to the car. When she is driving away, she pulls over and vomits, and when she leans back into the car, she is startled by the ghost of Juno sitting in the passenger seat. The US version cuts to the credits here. In the UK version, this apparition causes Sarah to wake up for real at the bottom of the cave, revealing her escape to be just a dream. She then has a vision of her daughter's birthday cake, which we see is just her torch. The camera backs out, the voices of the creatures can be heard again and are increasing in strength as they are closing in on her, and the movie ends. This ending was considered "too dark" for US audiences.

Connections
Edited into The Descent: Deleted and Extended Scenes (2006)

User reviews1.4K

Review

Featured review

8/10

Good Scary Movie

When I read that "The Descent" featured an all women cast I expected a T+A extravaganza with spelunkers in too tight T-shirts and panties cavorting beneath the earth. I was disappointed. What I saw was a scary movie. I am not by nature claustrophobic but a few scenes of the close quarters they were climbing through left me squirming in my seat. I can't continue the review without issuing a SPOILER alert since I will be discussing critical movie facts. The movie was very spookily lit with looming shadows and false colors and was expertly designed. The creatures living below ground were creepy and scary since often they were only glimpsed in the shadows. I hadn't expected the death count to be so high nor the movie to be so bloody. I flinched often during the movie due to the sudden appearance of the creatures or from the wounds suffered by the cast. The pace of the movie once they began the cave exploration was very fast and of course with this type of movie a deeper examination of the facts reveals some plot holes but events move too fast for reflection. I can't say I liked or agreed with some events in the end of the movie. I think Juno, maybe not the best person in the group, was unfairly judged and condemned. None the less the movie was very effective in scaring me and holding my attention. The fact that it had, primarily, an all women cast was hardly noticeable. This is not a chick flic. Worth seeing.