Why The Descent is a modern horror masterpiece

A few months ago I had the privilege of watching a film that I had selected to be screened at one of my local arts venues, The Cheltenham Playhouse. With a drink in hand and no popcorn or queues in sight I headed into the auditorium to re-watch one of my favourite horror movies of the 21^st century. I might also add my husband came along (eventually) despite his general apathy towards the genre, much to his credit, under my assertion this is an excellent film.  I would (and did) pitch this as being a better, more re-watchable film than other recent favourites The Babadook and Get Out, both of which I thoroughly enjoyed.

Basic premise - a group of friends embark on a spelunking trip that goes horribly wrong. Spoilers below.

The film deals with the issue of motherhood, of loss and mental illness, and grief to some degree, but mostly, it’s a damn entertaining horror film. Endless narrow tunnels and womblike caverns dominate the landscape of the film, and once the group are stuck following the rocks blocking the tunnel, strong hues of red, blue and green permeate the frames.

What I love about The Descent is at no point does it feel like a “women’s horror film”. The characters happen to be women, it doesn’t define them in any way. What’s more, they all get to kick their fair share of cave dwelling ass (and occasionally stick a pickaxe through each other).

Juno can easily be viewed as the real antagonist of the whole movie. She is the sole reason they are in the cave, get stuck in the cave, and all because she feels bad for sleeping with her friends husband. It is somewhat then morally satisfying that Sarah is the one to murder her. It was intriguing to me to hear my partner's thoughts on the film, particularly that despite the crawlers (I think we agreed Nosferatu-gollums were an acceptable name) being objectively terrifying, as is tradition in the horror genre, the film built far more successful tension before showing the creatures. 

I have never known how to feel about the ending of this film. In many ways, I would love to see Sarah driving off blood stained into the sunset a la Sally at the end of Texas Chainsaw Massacre, but we brits were given a far bleaker ending, which thankfully doesn’t 

allow for the sequel (which we will pretend never happened). What I love the most about the ending is this shot, probably one of my favourites in the history of cinema, I genuinely look forward to it every time I see this film.

Ultimately The Descent is a modern masterpiece as it places its female characters in each and every role, antagonist to protagonist. They drive the narrative, and ultimately these women are what keep you watching as one by one they are picked off by crawlers – not since Sally escaping from Leatherface, or Laurie Strode from Michael Myers has a character such inspired an audience to root for their survival.

The Descent is currently available to stream on Netflix UK.