10 Mean Films For Mean Times

Grim and unrelenting, The Descent is the best British horror film since 28 Days Later, a survivalist thriller that's very different from director Neil Marshall's earlier Dog Soldiers (2002).

Released in the UK shortly before the very similar The Cave, The Descent tells a story about trapped explorers, but does so with more verve and conviction. Here, the characters don’t have “cannon fodder” written all over them, and since we care about whether or not they live, Marshall’s able to ratchet up the tension to almost unbearable levels.

In the US theatrical cut, the film ended abruptly and bizarrely, with Shauna Macdonald escaping the cavern and returning to her car, only to run into one of her supposedly dead friends. The original British ending, where Macdonald’s escape was revealed to have been a dream, makes more sense, even if it borrows heavily from Ambrose Bierce’s An Occurrence At Owl Creek Bridge.