Part-Time Review: The Descent (2006)

Film Grade: A+

*This film is a prestigious member of my Film Bible

Neil Marshall’s The Descent premiered in the summer of 2006 to some fanfare amongst horror fans, got some decent notice as that one scary cave-diving movie, slipped out of popularity, and has been nearly forgotten under a deluge of low budget genre entries since. That’s really a shame because this female led film is not just one of the more underrated horror films of all-time, but it’s one of cinema’s greatest cautionary tales as well. This simple spelunking tragedy illustrates to devastating effect how acidic life’s traumas can be to the bonds that keep our healthy civilized selves away from the savages we are all so capable of becoming. Stick with me on this spoiler-filled review as I'd like to take some time and share with you why I find this film about a group of spelunking friends a shockingly powerful insight to the Christian faith. 

The story centers on Sarah (Shauna MacDonald) who loses both her husband and child to a tragic car accident within the first few minutes of the film. A year after the traumatic events, Sarah travels to the Appalachian Mountains to try and get her life back to normal by spending time with a group of her fellow adventurous girlfriends. There are five other ladies in this immediately likeable group, each with their own distinctive personalities and relationships with Sarah: Becca is a motherly figure, Sam is Becca’s younger sister, Beth is Sarah’s closest supporter and friend, Juno is super athletic leader type, and Holly is Juno’s young apprentice. Instead of just sitting in a cabin for the weekend they choose to bond and heal by doing some spelunking (cave-diving) in a nearby cave system.

The spelunking begins as a great success and the ladies are clearly enjoying the thrill and beauty of the cave. It’s here we really get to know the characters and how their strengths and weaknesses work in the group dynamic. Holly’s youth adds an element of awe and wonder, but also foolhardiness that will eventually lead her to break her leg in grisly fashion. Thankfully, Sam’s medical background comes in handy here. Becca’s motherly competence comes out in a wince-inducing sequence when she has to be the first to painfully cross over a great chasm hand over hand. Beth gets a great moment when she has to encourage a panicked and paralyzed Sarah whose claustrophobia had gotten the best of her in an extremely narrow passage. That passage ultimately collapses bringing the first sense of tragic doom to the group who now fears they have no alternative exits to the surface.

Director Neil Marshall does a fantastic job capturing these early moments well; weaving together important character building while providing us with a visceral cave-diving adventure. You can sense through the screen the danger and thrill of what it would be like to experience into these giant cave systems; the parching nature of the dry dust in the air, the lack of light forcing you to squint, and even the stress brought on with the tightness of some of the spaces on the screen. Even the film completely lacked any of its classic jump scares or monsters and it was just a drama about cave diving women, these scenes would be worth a viewing alone.

 

Having your only known exit collapse on you is a serious kind of trauma – a pulling of a rug from underneath you that leaves you feeling immediately vulnerable in a way you hadn’t before. To double up on that trauma, the group learns that their athletic leader Juno, hoping to give them a true bonding thrill, brought them to an unexplored cave system. This means that no one knows where they are and no emergency help can come find them. This is a second kind of trauma the film introduces – that of broken trust between friends. For Sarah, this particular trauma resounds even greater as she will later discover (what others already knew) that Juno had an affair (and still loved) with Sarah’s dead husband.

It isn’t until all of these traumas are compounded that the film segues into being a true on horror film with the introduction of the horrific “crawlers.” By the end of the film the ladies learn that these blind, hairless, albino creatures are humanoids but have slowly evolved and adapted to living underground. The second half of the film features the women looking for a way out as they battle these creatures. This is where you get most of your gory horror tropes as the creatures isolate and kill the group off. This is all done well with some great moments of shock and nice winking homages to other classic horror films. If you are just looking for a gut level horror film – this is the part of the film that will deliver for you. Thankfully though, this film has so much more on its mind than just providing base level scares. 

For amidst the scares always lay a question fundamental to the cautionary tale of the film: Will I continue to trust others to help me through my trauma? More specifically, am I willing to forgive others in the midst of my trauma so that I can begin to trust? To do so is to draw closer together with others and give yourself a chance at healing. To not do so isolates oneself and ultimately leads to self-destruction. 

Sarah’s attendance on this spelunking trip shows that she is trying to allow her friendships to guide her through the loss of her husband and daughter. However, due to some misunderstandings within the group, Sarah begins to isolate herself. When the cave collapses and they discover Juno’s mistake, you can sense the group drawing apart, losing trust, and becoming heated with each other. This dynamic is further intensified when the crawlers appear and the women panic for their lives.

In one particularly painful moment, a separated Juno is hounded by crawlers but is able to successfully fend them off when she rages at them with a piece of climbing gear that acts a bit like an axe. Unfortunately, in a shocking turn, she accidentally strikes Beth and kills her. The trauma of the accident overwhelms Juno and when she later finds the group she mentions that the crawlers killed Beth rather than trust the group and explain the accident. Later, Sarah would discover the truth and be given another reason that her trust should be broken and take a step further toward isolation; a step that leads from civilization into savagery. The symbolism is pretty obvious but no less powerful for it: The women, who are slowly descending into isolated savagery with each trauma and each decision to not trust are thematic mirrors of the savage crawlers who have perfectly adapted to the darkness little by little.

 

This thematic choice reminds me a lot of the A&E show Hoarders. The show features people struggling with a hoarding disorder (amongst many other disorders) that usually manifests itself in a house packed to the gills with trash and other “collectibles” that they just can’t get rid of. The logistics of the hoarded houses are fascinating, but the psychology behind the disorder is even more so. I’ve noticed that those who end up hoarding usually have several things in common: a traumatic event kickstarts some pain and suffering and instead of pursuing healthy and trusting relationships to help them walk through that trauma they choose to collect various things to help soothe their pain. Hoarders have a negatively reinforced spiral where they have chosen to isolate themselves from healthy relationships and the more they are isolated, the more they have lost their ability to understand and comprehend how to love even themselves.

Many hoarders live in their homes without power, without running water, without a functioning toilet, without a working kitchen, sleeping surrounded by piles of garbage and the rodents who join them. When friends and family (who are often now distant) come to help, you get the impression that at the end of a hoarding disorder is a kind of isolated savagery that has largely given up on any other conception of life. The saddest part of it is that it has been going on so long that these disorders seem largely irreversible and ingrained. Like the crawlers in the film, these hoarders have slowly adapted themselves to life in the darkness.

The Descent’s emotional story climaxes in a standoff between Sarah and Juno as the last two survivors, each wielding one of those climbing gear axes for protection as they are still being chased by the crawlers. You could say that Juno is the closest thing the film has to a traditional villain, but the movie goes to great lengths to balance her out. Juno’s poor choice of cave wasn’t purposeful sabotage, but ego mixed with a desire to help Sarah and the group do something that would help heal and bond them. Juno’s decision to lie about the accident with Beth is understandable even if poorly decided. Juno even has a chance to head out of the cave without Sarah but declares that she won’t leave without her – even sharing the way out with Sarah. The two come to a standoff and Sarah must make a final decision: forgive Juno and work together to get out or take her revenge. She ultimately decides on revenge – cracking her axe into Juno’s ankle and leaving her to a gruesome end at the hand of the crawlers. Sarah ends up crawling her way out of the cave to safety. She gets in her car to drive away and is startled by the sudden sight of a dead Juno in the car with her. She escaped but will be haunted by her choice...

At least that's where the ending for the United States version of the film ends and it’s nowhere near as good as the actual original ending of the film (what is labeled as the original unrated cut). The film originally premiered in Britain in 2005 and after she is startled by the image of a dead Juno, Sarah awakens back in the cave (she fell down and knocked her head while crawling out) and we realize that she never actually made it out of the cave. Sarah, who has now clearly lost her mind, sees in the darkness an image of her dead daughter in front of a large birthday cake. The camera pulls back from Sarah who is locked in and entranced (on her hands and knees) by this image. In actuality, she is alone and in the dark and the screams of the crawlers are filling the cave. This ending hits like a ton of bricks and makes good on the promise of the cautionary tale. A cautionary tale isn’t, get your revenge, survive, and just learn to deal with the grief as the US ending would have you believe.

The original and true ending gives this cautionary tale its most impactful and terrifying punch – if you choose the way of unforgiveness and distrust, not only will it fail, not only will it fail others, but you won’t even be able to recognize yourself anymore. To connect it back to hoarding: the horror isn’t just that your house is now hoarded, or that you’ve lost all your relationships; the true horror is that you’ve lost yourself. This is hell. You cannot recognize healthy from unhealthy, good from evil, civilized from savagery. To choose the way of distrust and unforgiveness may feel like standing up and being strong in the short term, but will have you crawling and deluded in the end.

This tale resonates so deeply with me because it speaks a deep truth about reality: the fundamental need for trust, forgiveness, and relationships. I see this fundamental truth so wonderfully demonstrated in the teachings and life of Jesus Christ. There is no trauma we have encountered that Jesus did not also encounter. Yet, through it all, he emphatically implored us to forgive one another and turn the other cheek. It's easy to talk the talk, but he ultimately walked the walk and suffered the ultimate trauma of the crucifixion and the cross. What could he be heard saying while on the cross? “Father forgive them, they know not what they do.” I'll write it again because it's so important and the most haunting lesson of the film - to choose the way of distrust and unforgiveness may feel like standing up and being strong in the short term, but will have you crawling and deluded in the end. Trust, forgiveness, and relationship are fundamental to how God created us and he demonstrated that in Christ and it’s in following that way that we can protect ourselves from the hell of The Descent.

FILM GRADE: A+