I fell asleep the first time I watched this film, which was not a good omen, and it was a real chore to get the remote control going again to watch the rest of it. I honestly would have given up and never cared about what happened to the protagonists, had I not paid about £12 for the damn DVD. I cannot understand the intense popularity of the film, people rave about it like they found the cinematic Holy Grail when in fact, it is a dull tale about a group of yakking women going potholing and being killed by a couple of weird monsters who look like Gollum. That's it. There are no genuine chills to be found in The Descent - everything relies on jump horror scares - oh no it's a bat! Oh it's a bird! The monsters are pathetic. They are blind, deaf and can't feel. You can easily twist their necks and kill them, but the women are powerless to their attacks - they really let the female sex down. It is not explained who these creatures are and why are they in this cave? How on earth with no senses do they manage to leave the cave at night to feed on animals? Furthermore I cannot believe anyone who watched this thought it was seriously scary. They must have had very sheltered cinema viewing experiences. I found the whole thing to be soporific.
My first film watched was Carrie aged 2 on my dad's knee. Educated at The University of St Andrews and Trinity College Dublin. Fan of Arthouse, Exploitation, Horror, Euro Trash, Giallo, New French Extremism. Weaned at the bosom of a Russ Meyer starlet. The bleaker, artier or sleazier the better!
