I know way too much about your vaginas

[Yeah, I know The Descent has been out in the U.S. for almost a week and I'm technically "late" posting a review of it now. But whatever -- we're going to be talking about this movie for a long, long time. In the grand scheme, I'm early. And anyway, this isn't a review, per se, but an excavation, if you will, of the characters' vaginas. Here starts The Descent slash. Just kidding. But there are spoilers. Many and several. I'm giving the entire movie away here, everybody. So please: if you have an inkling that you might be interested in seeing this, shut down your computer and get your ass to the nearest cineplex, now. I love this movie too much to ruin it for you.

Also, there is gore below. So beware of that, too. I love you to much to ruin lunch for you.]

The first act of Neil Marshall's The Descent is as typically unremarkable as contemporary horror first acts go. Despite the presence of a genuine, gory tragedy (a pole goes through the head of the husband of protagonist Sarah) and a phony reprise of said tragedy played out on Sarah in a dream, the film's first 30 minutes are devoid of tension. What we're presented with, instead, is sisterhood as dreamed up by a man. Sarah, the grieving widow and childless mother, and a group of her friends convene in some rustic, cabin-like house in the Appalachian Mountains in preparation for their recreational exploration of Boreham Caves. It's a group of broad broads: Beth, Sarah's pal and confidant; Juno, the thrill-seeking minx who's too hot to not have her sexuality eventually emphasized (her archetypal role is that of the other woman -- we come to find that she had a seeming relationship with Sarah's husband before those poles); Holly, a self-described "sports fuck," who looks the role, all Sporty Spice-y and butch (is there anything that says "earthy-crunchy-lezzie" more clearly than the rainbow peace sign sticker that's on her helmet?); Sam, the future doctor, who ends up nursing upon in-cave injury; and Rebecca, who...looks like Melissa Etheridge. The girls sit around the cabin, hug, drink, talk about boys and kids. If their upcoming mission were to find some bodies, you could call it Waiting To Exhume. As it stands, it's a whiff away from an FDS commercial.

When they set out the next day, the movie doesn't pick up. It becomes an episode of Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman.

It would seem that with cinema being the way it is, the pointed act of assembling six women and zero men for a horror movie aims to say something about womankind. But Marshall's point in this matter is rarely clear, even if the fact that these women willfully proceed down a hole in Mother Earth puts the feminine imagery in overdrive. Whether the tomb is really a womb and what that could possibly mean for Marshall's position on women thankfully stops mattering soon as the girls go further into their descent, which is both literal and figurative (the title is as much about cave diving as the trajectory of its characters' fates). At first, the cave proves herself a bitch as the women are faced with collapsing pockets of little space and virtually bottomless pits. No real surprises there -- anyone going into this should be expecting the typical nature versus man routine (even if said man has a vag). Complicating their efforts is the fact that they're in uncharted territory -- the truth emerges that daredevil Juno led them all down into this cave because the one they were supposed to explore was a tourist trap (hence earlier, suspiciously lingering shot of Juno leaving behind the map book). This is the first indication that The Descent is unlike the current crop of horror because the film is not being driven by its supposedly intelligent characters' stupidity (see a mother's careless handling of a fatal video tape that her child snatches up in The Ring, or a father's repeated ignorance of a prophecy unfurling before his eyes in The Omen). Juno is unwise, but completely aware -- her character doesn't condescend, she's just a daredevil.

And it's this lack of condescension that pushes the movie into brilliance. The first half hour finally makes sense when the gore kicks in -- Sarah's hand is torn open by a rope and, in an extended bit, Holly takes such a fall that her leg bone pops out through her skin and needs it pushed back in place. The genius here is that the Lifetime movie becomes hardcore -- it's unflinching and it hurts.

And then come the monsters (referred to as "crawlers"), which are even more blindsiding than the gore. The trailer echoes the doctor character Sam's list of all that can befall those who cave dive: "dehydration, disorientation, claustrophobia, panic attacks, paranoia, hallucinations, visual and aural deterioration." The marketing and the movie, then, set you up for a shock that isn't explained away by any of these (though none of the effects exactly help our heroines), nor are the monsters explained away by some twist ending. They're there, they're real and when they become a problem, little else that came before them matters for a very long stretch. It's such a simple setup (people battling aggressive forces in an aggressive environment) that it's a wonder there aren't more movies like this. The Descent is a monster movie for a generation that doesn't have monster movies.

That it blossoms into something so brutally scary after being so nice and emotional and frilly makes the film a survivor in its own right. The Descent is constantly overcoming its limitations -- as a horror movie at a time when the pretension of the adjective "psychological" and PG-13 is the de facto law, as a chick flick, and as a low-budget film. There are scenes that look like Fraggle Rock...

...there is CG no more advanced than that in Alien³...

...but those shots are brief and don't take away from the movie to any large degree. And, in fact, the movie's economical decisions often enhance it, like when we get our first good look at a crawler via night vision...

As the girls fight their human struggle against the crawlers (one that isn't gender-based, as we find out when we see a monster with breasts -- even if she's just a girl bad guy, she's at least there to make this less of a literal women vs. men battle) and die one by one, the issue of their gender does shift back into focus. The almost literal backstabbing that occurs would seem to suggest that despite the fact that we're watching strongest, most determined women cinema has to offer in the most primal environ, undergoing the most primordial circumstances, a bitch is a bitch is a bitch. In Beth's last words, she tells Sarah that Juno killed her and left her to die (omitting the fact that it was an accident and not understanding that that you have to do for self in such a situation). "Don't trust her," she warns and then reveals that Juno had an affair with Sarah's husband. Later, after all the other girls have died and it's down to just Sarah and Juno, the pair successfully take on a pack of three crawlers. Moments later, Sarah reveals that she knows what Juno did last year and puts a spike through her leg. Maybe she's leaving Juno there as bait, but she's just been shown the ass-kicking asset that Juno is. The maiming feels personal and pretty foolish, but what else would you expect from a silly, fickle, cornflake girl?

That The Descent sucks as gender polemic makes me love it even more, because it transcends it, (however unwittingly) exposing how unnecessary the pretension in modern horror movies is. The implied statements on the nature of women do nothing to hinder the action, to make the monsters less scary, to make the search for an exit less urgent. I saw this movie a few months ago via Region 2 DVD (that's where all the screenshots in this post come from, btw), lent to me by horror expert and fab writer Buzz. I liked it then, but it wasn't until I saw it opening weekend that I fell in love with it. I chalk it up to the reliably rowdy audience that Brooklyn's United Artists Court Street theater draws. The bulk of the audience wasn't out to intellectualize The Descent and they loved it anyway -- maybe too much. There was mass schadenfreude (from the cackling that Sarah's foot getting caught elicited, you would have thought that Little Man was down there, holding onto her boot), a bombardment of obvious observations ("They got a collection," said someone when the girls came upon a section of the cave covered in animal bones, in one of the movie's blatant references to The Texas Chain Saw Massacre) and near-satirical, intentional misreadings. When Juno pulled out a Zippo...

...the spirited group of teenage boys behind us said, "She gonna light a blunt," and then, in homage to the film's British origin: "Oi'm gettin' hoi-gh." They had fun, they screamed, they lamented Sarah's betrayal of Juno and I don't think they came out thinking any less of women. Probably no more either, but that's fine, too. A horror movie able to exist unto itself is a blessing. That reason and The Descent's ability to work as sly commentary on the state of horror today (through its subversion of its huggy setup and through its ability to be a scare film that's actually and simply scary) help make it the horror movie of the decade. It might not be saying much, though -- what else has been great this decade? The thrilling but fatally flawed Haute Tension? The brutal but unnecessary Texas Chainsaw Massacre remake? The snappier but similarly pointless Dawn of the Dead remake? Fucking Freddy vs. Jason? And, for that matter, what was great in the '90s? Candyman? Scream, for sure, and that, too, worked on a very basic level, while leaving cinematic commentary as an added bonus (albeit in a much more obvious way).

And then, there's the ending of The Descent, which is different in the U.S. and U.K. versions. A detailed contrast of the two, with a YouTube clip of the U.K. ending is here. Basically, after maiming Juno, Sarah stumbles into a section of the cave, falls down a hole and magically is faced with the exit, which she must climb up a hill of bones to reach (a la The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2). Once she's out, she runs to the car, gets in, pulls over, vomits, looks over in the passenger seat, and boom:

Juno's back. Cut to:

The U.S. version ends there. There's an added minute or so in the U.K. version, which leads to this:

Sarah's actually still in the cave. It was all a dream -- her stumble didn't lead her to the exit, but further down. The parting shot is of Sarah gazing at her torch, mistaking it for birthday candles from a frequent vision she has of her dead daughter.

For a while, unlike virtually everyone else who's seen the longer cut, I preferred where the U.S. version ends. I figured that Sarah's fucked either way -- she has to contend with the ghost of Juno or she's stuck inside the cave. The U.K. cut, I thought, flip-flopped too much -- she escapes and then is confronted with this apparition and then we find she's actually still in the cave. Besides, isn't that final "jump scare" (as Buzz calls it) way too cinematic of a dream to have? Of course it is, and that's why I've come to love the U.K. ending -- the flash cut to the ghost of Juno is too conventional a twist, too much of a typical one-final-scare. In cutting away from this to what really happened, the movie offers its most tangible contrast against it and the conventions of modern horror. "We could have gone this way, but instead, we're going the bleak, quiet, weird, sad route." The Descent is better than one-final-ghost shit, and damn it, it knows it. Transcendence is the real thrill here.

Comments

[gayest neil]

Agreed! The end climax became a "You slep wit my man! Bitch I'll cut chu!" ending. It didn't make sense in that they were both such terrific fighters.

If you're being chased by blood sucking cave-mimes, you don't kill the only chica who got your back!

And I'm not sure I liked all the homages to other horror movies, Carrie, Alien, Goonies.

Don't get me wrong. I LOVED THIS MOVIE. The fact that we saw it in a packed theatre of horror/sci-fi geeks only made the viewing that much better, but in retrospect, hmmmm the ending didn't live up to the awesomeness of the beginning, in my opinion.

Then again, any movie with kick-ass womyn is tops in my book.

[jocelyn]

good review, rich, even if you left out reference to that critical theorist's favorite the vagina dentata, manifest both in the twisty-turny stalactite/stalagmite-covered cave of wonders and in the round tearing mouths of the crawlers... i was desperate to find meaning in the movie after watching it since i felt so dirty and shaken. i'm glad that the more i thought about the movie the more i was able to unpack... and you're right, it's not about the minutiae, is it? it's about grabbing deep into your psyche and pulling bits of your id to the surface-- as the best of horror does. why give birth when you all might come up with are nasty eating machines?

i love this film, and i love your blog.

[Ed]

FAB review for a FAB movie!

[Gwen]

Hi I'm Gwen and I'm here to waaaaaassssshh your vagina

[rustyspigot]

Was it the ghost of Juno? I thought maybe she had survived and there would be an ultimate bitch fight followed by hugs and tears (well not so much those last two). I liked her better than Sarah, despite it being her fault in the first place they were down there. Not exactly a good tourism video either, "Visit the Caves of Appalachia, Where it's Almost Mutant-free!"

[Patricia]

Modern day horror movies usually cause me to laugh hysterically (I was yelled at during "White Noise" for giggling), but I must say, "The Descent" truly scared me. I won't remark on the social commentary, because at the time, I didn't care. I was too busy screaming and yelling "Run bitches!!" at the screen.

Considering that one of my greatest fears in life is getting stuck in the Appalachian mountains with murderous inbreds (don't ask), I guess that I was bound to be scared shitless.

PS: How nasty was the coagulated blood pool?

it does sound like alien, though.

[Quel]

Um. I take back what I said before. I can't watch this film...just learned that it's a horror film. Those things give me night terrors.

Great recap of the movie. I'm SO sure that crawler will show up in my dreams.

[kuntroversy]

all i could think of when i saw this movie was 'ginas. everyone has 'ginas. look, they're climbing into a big ol dark, moist 'gina. and the...crawlers looked like giant, flesh-eating sperm, hungry for fresh, unsuspecting 'gina. the moral of the story is, don't go muff diving or surely you'll perish. okay, but seriously? this movie scared the holy fuck out of me. like...yeah. i thought this film would be above that petty 'girlishness' displayed at the end: you fucked my man, now you're creature bait, die bitch. but. yeah. it was great. i haven't been scared like that in a looong time.

[xnowhereboyx]

We just saw TD this afternoon and I had to read through your take on it and also all the comments to help me process it more. My roommate didn't really care for it (he kept saying how the comparisons to Alien made it not live up to his expectations and he felt disappointed) but I really liked it. What I saw of it. I had to keep scrunching my eyes closed or looking the other way because I hate those moments when you know something's going to jump out at you but it's just a question of waiting for it (like the window that Sarah looks through in the cabin when she "wakes up", duh, it's a window in a horror movie, you just know something's going to fly through it...) And I also liked it despite the fact that these two little bitches saw me walking out of the theater and they pretended to jump and one of them said "Those cave things were tanner than that guy!" Bitches... The 12-year-old girl next to me didn't flinch once the entire movie. And she was totally eating a nasty hot dog with ketchup all over it at the beginning. Are kids today so desensitized to this kind of thing already? I kept thinking, If she can watch this movie then I shouldn't be such a fraidy cat. Boy was I wrong.

Like Buzz, I immediately made the connection between "the descent" not only being about caving, but also to a descent into madness for Sarah. We were discussing the possible reasons Sarah crippled a bitch, and after running through revenge for the affair (which my roommate didn't pick up on until I put 2 and 2 together for him) and for letting Beth die and getting them into that mess in the first place to maybe using Juno as bait so Sarah could excape I thought maybe Sarah just finally lost it and did it because she accepted the fact that they were all going to die in the caves and she didn't want Juno to have a slight opportunity to excape. I didn't even notice that she didn't take her meds with her, so that kind of furthers "the descent into madness" theory.

While I thought the tension and atmosphere were perfect, of course there are little unexplained details that I just can't get past:

- When Sarah excapes up that bone tunnel to the outside, she pushes through the opening (like coming out of the womb perhaps?) like it hasn't been passed through in years, and that's apparently where the crawlers were getting out to hunt for caribou

- The crawlers can't see, yet they are able to scurry through the caves at lightning speed as if they can see where they're going

- The crawlers can't see, and when Sarah was waving her torch around they didn't, oh, I don't know, feel the heat from the fire or anything

- It is totally implausible that there is a gaping hole in the earth that big just a few hundred yards from a dirt road that NO ONE has ever mentioned before. Like there wouldn't be a Starbucks at the cave entrance by now or something

- There sure were a lot of bones in that cave, like way too many. And what was up with that huge pool of blood? It's not like they were operating an abattoir in there or anything. The first time the ladies encounter some bones they are neatly arranged around that little pool of water, so who organized them like that if the crawlers can't see?

- There was only one female crawler. Much like Smurfette, you can't repopulate a species with just one female. And while we got to see her critties (crawler titties) how was it possible that all the crawlers were perfectly Ken dolled in the groin area?

- When did the crawlers hunt? I assume at night, but how did they know it was night if they had no visual capabilities? They couldn't even see a glow stick or a torch right in front of their eyes, so I find it hard to believe they could sense sunlight

- If they were humanoid, how were they able to walk across ceilings?

- How many of those things were there, and if the cave system was so narrow and conceivably small where did they keep coming from? How did the crawlers get there in the first place?

- Who made the cave drawings, and why did they happen to coincidentally show that there were two exits/entrances to said cave system? And why were there drawings of buffalo under the mountain, as if the buffalo were living underground?

- If the "old time" spelunkers left arrows toward the exit, how did they know they were going toward the exit? Did they find an exit to the cave and then go back in to leave arrows for future reference for people they had no idea were going to come into the caves? And if they did find another exit and excape, why didn't they tell anyone else about the cave? Where were the crawlers when they were going through the cave?

- Where was all the oxygen coming from?

- How come Holly, the most zaftig of the models, was able to fit through the first crawl tunnel yet Sarah got stuck?

It's things like this that keep me up at night with confusion. As we were leaving the theater my roommate said "That pretty much made me never want to go caving" and I saw his observation and raised him "That pretty much made me never want to go anywhere near North Carolina."

I'm so glad you were here with this recap, and for the link to buzz's UK/US ending compare. You should audition for Peebert & Fourfour.

[xnowhereboyx]

OK, my roommate explained to me last night that the "old spelunkers" came in from the other exit and were leaving arrows to mark their way back out of the cave in case they got lost, and that the crawlers probably got them. So, I will erase my previous confusion over this and raise you this one:

- How was Beth able to speak to Sarah after she got a pick through the throat? Oh, and was lying there paralyzed and bleeding profusely through a hole in her neck for about a half an hour before Sarah found her. Still alive.

[Chris Hassiotis]

The answer to the above questions is "Just because."

[Daniel]

Dude, xnowhereboyx, you just think too much, man. There's air underground, and girlfriend had her bag under her when she got stuck. Don't think too deep on this stuff. You'll like it better that way.

Anyway Rich, I just saw this shit. I took your advice, I skipped your review and saw it as soon as I could. And I FUCKING LOVED IT! Fucking classic. Scared the shit out of me and I totally agree with that earlier post--my gut sank when Juno struck out at girlfriend with the pickaxe. Sarah was a stupid ho for killing Juno, tho. Juno fuckin' kicked ass--she could've settled with her later. Her friend was a BITCH for leaving out the "accidental" part. What a cunt. The UK ending is way better, she got what was coming to her. Whatever. The DVD shall be mine.

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[Sarah is a bitch]

Sarah was a stupid ho for killing Juno, tho. Juno fuckin' kicked ass--she could've settled with her later. Her friend was a BITCH for leaving out the "accidental" part. What a cunt.

[gun lock]

In my head I'm hearing this on the stage as a spoken-word performance. I would love to hear this at an open mic or poetry slam!! Beautiful. Provocative. Inspiring. Thanks.

[pc sheet]

You are such a smart, accomplished woman and a doggone wonderful person. Your writing is a reflection of your beautiful mind and heart. Brava you!