The Descent

In amongst the anodyne, identikit Hollywood teen horrors of recent years, there have been a few low budget, independent chillers that have managed to keep the flagging genre just on the right side of respectable. 2001's Dog Soldiers with its mixture of profane humour and werewolf-related carnage was one such movie, and fans have anxiously been awaiting the follow-up film from mild-mannered geordie director Neil Marshall.

Almost inconceivably, Marshall has managed to craft the most frightening and visceral movie in recent memory out of a scenario so obvious that it would make Roger Corman blush. Six female chums go potholing deep beneath the Appalachian Mountains in the States, but soon find themselves hopelessly lost in the labyrinthine catacombs. As if that wasn't bad enough, there's something in the caves with them, something that is very quick, very powerful, and hungry.

Like The Blair Witch Project, much of the initial horror comes from the childlike terror of being lost, but combining it with the primal fear of being confined gives the first hour of The Descent a very uncomfortable edge. In fact, one might almost argue that Marshall engineers the atmosphere of dread so effectively that there is no real need to bring the monsters into play at all. However, that would be a rather churlish comment, as once the Crawlers are doing their thing, you might as well stand up as you'll certainly be spending more time out of your seat than in it.

A swift opening gives us sufficient back-story to care about the six girls, and understand their various reactions to the events that unfold. Special mention goes to Natalie Jackson Mendoza, playing the group leader Juno, who is beautiful, lethal as hell and strangely pitiful. But this is really Marshall's show – his use of darkness within the frames, the arrhythmia-inducing editing and the refusal to allow for easy escapes or answers are masterful, and his film is a full-blooded, rip-roaring success.

As long as Neil Marshall is making horror movies, I refuse to lose faith in the genre. See The Descent and you will understand why.

Greg Taylor