12 Blatant Copycat Movie Pairs (And Which Was Better)

Released just a month apart in 2005, The Descent and The Cave are both horror movies about a group of spelunkers exploring underground cave systems that they soon find are home to some rather hostile troglodytes.

Both films feature a cast of relative unknowns, but The Descent bucks the trend with an all-female case not usually seen in the horror genre. While The Cave has some real cave filming locations working in its favour, The Descent’s ‘underground’ scenes were filmed on a set but don’t suffer for it.

Each movies’ budget and box office takings are particularly revealing. The Cave boasted the bigger budget of the two ($30 million) but barely broke even with ticket revenues of $33.3 million, whereas The Descent’s tiny budget of £3.5 million secured it $57.1 million at the box office.

Which One Was Better

The budgets and box office figures pretty much say it all really. The Descent boasts the better cast, scarier (if more primitive-looking) monsters and claustrophobic terror by the bucket-load and it managed to do all of that on just a fraction of The Cave’s budget.

Basically, The Cave is The Descent’s second-rate cousin. Stick to the latter for genuine chills and thrills.