Spoiler-Free Review: The Descent (2005)
While most people dealing with trauma try to climb out of a hole, Sarah Carter (Shauna Macdonald) decides to jump back into one. To an extreme enthusiast like her, however, this is exactly the kind of therapy doctors would recommend. The trauma in question is a tragic car accident that claimed her daughter and husband. The hole she’s jumping into happens to be a cave system, one that she and her friends are keen to explore. An “extreme” version of a girls’ night out, if you will.
Despite the group’s best intentions, healing from trauma rarely works in the dark, rarely works in claustrophobic settings, and rarely works when a mysterious species decides to hunt you down. It also rarely works when some of your friends have secrets and hidden agendas designed to pull each other apart at the worst possible moment. And you can classify “being hunted by predators” as the worst possible moment.
The Descent maintains a masterful strain of suspense, dragging us through the minutiae of a caving expedition to suffocating depths. It is spooky, anxiety-inducing, and downright terrifying at times. This could equally apply to the act of exploring a cave through a labyrinth of tiny spaces or the mysterious elements watching over our group of friends with demented fervor.
This is a must-watch movie from the mid-2000s, but it is not for the faint of heart.
