Creeptober Day 18: The Descent
Claustrophobia, monsters, and lies. The Descent has it all.
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As we venture deeper into Creeptober, it’s time to revisit The Descent. Directed by Neil Marshall, this movie blends survival, drama, and monsters in a way that stands as one of the best horror films of the past few decades. It is eminently watchable, and we’re watching it again for day eighteen of Creeptober!
Read on for our thoughts on The Descent (2005) as well as a recap of the movie, and join the conversation on our Facebook, TikTok, and Instagram!
Reacting to The Descent
When The Descent came out, I became a gigantic fan of writer/director Neil Marshall. I’d seen Dog Soldiers (2002) and loved it, but The Descent really blew me away. It made me a Neil Marshall fan for life. I might not love his later movies as much, but this movie sets the bar extremely high. I’ve enjoyed every film he’s done since.
The Descent is on another level though. I never get tired of it, and I’ve seen it many times. A big reason why I like it so much is because of the characters and the story. Juno is the best character, and I’ll gladly debate anyone who says otherwise. She’s a complex character whose actions don’t always represent her true feelings. And sure, she makes mistakes, but that’s what makes her human and relatable. I have a lot more to say about Juno, but I’m letting that simmer as I contemplate a full analysis of why she’s the best. More on that in a future article.
Sarah, too, is complex and interesting as a character. Seeing her in near-constant conflict with Juno, even when that conflict isn’t readily apparent, adds so much tension to a movie already brimming with apprehension. Sarah is often positioned as an opposite to Juno. For example, visually, we see Juno use a flashlight and fight with a modern tool, while Sarah carries a flaming torch and uses her hands, teeth, and even a bone as weapons. Also, Sarah is metaphorically reborn as she emerges from blood, while Juno is cleansed after jumping into water. Visually, mentally, and metaphorically, Sarah and Juno are always at odds with each other.
Beyond Sarah and Juno, the rest of the friends all fit into well-defined roles as either supporters or agitators depending on the situation. They’re all wonderful, and together they really do feel like a group of friends who have gone through a lot together.
Story-wise, The Descent is a tragedy. Lies are told and secrets are withheld, but if everyone would have just talked to each other, much of what occurs could have been avoided. This is especially true of the ending when Sarah does what she does to Juno. It’s a series of mistakes, misunderstandings, trauma, and silence that lead to Sarah’s fateful decision. It’s an interesting situation that I still think about, even at times when I haven’t seen the movie in a while. The story in The Descent is outstanding.
It’s also great because of the visceral thrills the movie delivers. The crawlers are terrifying. The violence is brutal. And the blood flows freely towards the end. It’s a style of horror descended from movies like Alien (1979) where you have a group of people trapped in a small location with deadly monsters. The Descent lives up to that lineage well, creating incredibly tense moments, supremely effective shocks, and grueling bursts of horror. And that doesn’t even mention one of the best scenes in the movie, the claustrophobic collapsing of the tunnel Sarah is trapped in. It’s so good.
I suppose I should weigh in on the ending. I always watch the movie with the original ending, the one where Sarah is trapped in the cave. It’s much better than the other ending where she sees Juno in the truck and that’s where it stops. I’ve written about this before if you’re interested in reading some deeper thoughts about it, but to summarize, the “trapped” ending makes more sense with what happens throughout the movie.
As I near the end of this reaction, I should note how beautiful The Descent is. It’s a visually stunning movie in many ways. Most notable is the usage of different colored lights to naturally give different scenes vastly different tones (color tones obviously, but also tone in terms of overall feeling). If The Descent were made by a different crew in more recent years, there’s a good chance everything would be swathed in too-dark shades of blue. Instead, we can clearly see everything we need to see, and what we don’t see is intentional.
Also, the use of darkness and negative space is superb. At times the only thing we see is a small image of a character, surround by a screen filled mostly with darkness, as they struggle through a tight space in the caves. It gives the scene an overwhelming sense of how compact the space is, while at the same time illustrating how enormous the cave system itself is. These women are deep underground, and the darkness is oppressive. If you want, you can also choose to see the darkness as a metaphor for the things left unsaid between friends. This actually plays a large role in the themes of The Descent. Similar to how the darkness of the caves contributed to turning the crawlers into the monsters they are, the darkness of secrets, lies, and misunderstandings can cause friends to see each other as a different kind of monster.
The Descent – A Recap
After a whitewater rafting trip with her friends Juno and Beth, Sarah leaves with her husband Paul and daughter Jessica. Sarah and her family are in a car accident on the way to their hotel. Sarah wakes up in a hospital some time later, and she is devastated to learn that Paul and Jessica were killed in the crash.
One year later, Juno puts together a trip as a reunion for herself, Sarah, and Beth, as well as their friends, sisters Rebecca and Sam. Also along for the trip is Juno’s new adventure-loving friend Holly. The women gather at a cabin in Chatooga National Park (a fictional national park in the northern United States). Sarah joins in the festivities, but that night she has a horrific nightmare. The next day, the friends head out into the wilderness. The plan is to explore the Boreham Caverns, a relatively safe cave system which Holly says is for tourists. But when they arrive, Juno intentionally leaves her Boreham Caverns guidebook behind.
Deep in the woods, everyone descends into the entrance of the cave. Everything is going well as they go deeper into the cave system. Sarah appears nervous at times, and she keeps thinking she can hear something strange, but she doesn’t say anything. Then, in a particularly narrow passage, Sarah gets stuck. Everyone else has gone ahead of her, but Beth goes back to help Sarah. The passage begins to collapse, and Sarah and Beth barely make it into the next chamber ahead of the falling rocks.
With the way back sealed, Rebecca tries to calm everyone down by saying that there are multiple exits to the Boreham caves. Juno admits that she lied about where they are. They’re in an unexplored cave system that she wanted everyone to discover together. They can’t go back the way they came, so they have no choice but to move forward and look for a new way out. While venturing deeper into the caves, they find a piece of climbing equipment that Juno estimates is at least 100 years old. Someone has been down here before, but there is no evidence of anyone ever leaving.
Moving onward, Beth notices a cave painting which depicts a second exit to the caves. Shortly after, Holly rushes forward by herself. She thinks she sees daylight (it’s actually glowing phosphorus), but what she finds is a deep pit. Holly falls and breaks her leg. Elsewhere, in the darkness, Sarah sees a creature she believes is a man. No one believes Sarah, and everyone moves forward together. They soon come to a large chamber filled with bones. As their fear increases, they are attacked by a pale, humanoid creature referred to as a “crawler.”
When the crawler attacks, the friends scatter. Rebecca and Sam flee together. Sarah runs away on her own, with Beth attempting to follow her. Beth can’t keep up as Sarah gets too far ahead. Sarah slips and hits her head on a rock, knocking her unconscious. Holly is unable to run, and the crawler rips a chunk out of her neck. Juno stays with Holly and fights against the crawler trying to take her dead body away. A second crawler attacks Juno, which allows the first crawler to leave with Holly. In a violent struggle, Juno kills the crawler with her pickaxe. Immediately after, Beth walks up behind Juno. Still full of adrenaline and unsure of who or what is behind her, Juno swings her pickaxe, accidentally stabbing Beth in the neck. As Beth is dying, Juno, shocked, slowly walks away.
Juno eventually meets up with Rebecca and Sam. Juno wants to find Sarah, but Rebecca and Sam just want to leave. A group of crawlers chases them, and Sam and Rebecca are killed. Juno jumps into a chasm filled with water to escape the crawlers. Meanwhile, Sarah has gone through a transformation. She finds Beth who is still barely alive. Beth blames Juno for her wound, and Sarah sees that Beth is holding a necklace Juno always wears. Sarah kills Beth out of mercy, then she is attacked by a young crawler. Sarah kills the child crawler and what appears to be its mother. She then avoids a male crawler by pretending to be dead. Sarah reconnects with Juno as Juno is climbing out of the water.
Sarah asks Juno about the others. Juno says they’re all dead. When Sarah asks Juno if she saw Beth die, Juno says she did. The pair look for an exit together. After a fight against more crawlers, Sarah shows Juno the necklace she found Beth holding. The necklace has the phrase “love each day” on it, which is what Sarah’s husband Paul used to say all the time. Sarah stabs Juno in the leg, leaving her behind as numerous crawlers approach. Sarah falls and is once again knocked unconscious. When she wakes, she sees an exit. She rushes out of the cave and drives away. Stopping on the side of the road, Sarah sees a vision of Juno, bloodied and dead in the passenger seat of the vehicle. Sarah then wakes up from a dream. She is still in the cave, exactly where she was after leaving Juno and falling. Sarah, trapped in the caves, has a vision of her daughter celebrating her birthday as the movie ends. (note: The North American cut of the movie does not include Sarah waking up trapped in the cave.)
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