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AMAZON: CLICK
HERE
STUDIO: Lionsgate
MSRP: $21.49
RATED: Not rated
RUNNING
TIME: 94 minutes
SPECIAL
FEATURES:
– Seleted scenes
– Making-of featurette
– Storyboard gallery
– Commentary by director Ron Harris and actresses Shauna MacDonald, Krysten Cumming and Anna Skellern
The
Pitch
The C.H.U.D.s get another helping of surface folk.
The Humans
Shauna MacDonald, Michael J. Reynolds, Jessika Williams, Douglas Hodge, Joshua Dallas, Anna Skellern, Gavan O’Herlihy, Natalie Mendoza.
The
Nutshell
Two days after the disappearance of the six female spelunkers from the first film, including Sarah (MacDonald), in an unexplored cave in the Appalachian Mountains, a search and rescue effort is underway. When Sarah
emerges as the lone survivor and with no memory of the horrors from which she escaped, she leads another team down into the cave to try to find her friends. The things that killed her friends are of course waiting there for them.
“Please…need lift…out of this movie…”.
The Lowdown
First of all, the obvious question: is Descent 2 as good as the original? No. Is it worth seeing? Marginally, yes. Even though it’s basically a retread of Marshall’s innovative original that lacks any of the nuance, claustrophobia or chemistry of the first film. Sarah’s amnesia from shock is the way-too-big of a MacGuffin that makes this outing possible. Despite her ordeal, one might think that cannibalistic humanoid underground dwellers (of a different variety here), might be the kind of things that stick with someone for a little while. But since she can’t remember, we get basically a carbon copy of the first film, with a new cast of characters, most about whom we really don’t care.
“What did you find?”
“Some weird bullshit about a witch named Blair.”
“Why am I getting carsick looking at it?”
Once the rescuers are underground, the exact same situation develops: they’re cut off from the surface by a cave in and then have to try to survive the creatures that prowl the darkness. The kills mostly echo the first film, for both human and creature. A major downer though is that there are too many cheap jump scares thrown in. Furthermore, they’re set up like a row of dominoes; so there isn’t even that much jump to them. First-time director, Jon Harris, who edited the first film, runs Marshall’s playbook mostly to predictability. But the film is competently shot and although Harris adds absolutely nothing original, he doesn’t screw the pooch. So there’s that at least. There are two big surprises, including a twist ending. This would be worth a rent at best if you liked the first film. Just don’t expect much in the way of innovation.
Weirdest bondage threesome ever…
The
Package
Harris keeps the atmosphere from the first film, so there’s a lot of darkness that’s lit pretty well and the camerawork is good, so the film looks fine. Sound is also suitably good, although it gets a little low at times. There are about 10 minutes of deleted scenes, a couple of which, would have added even the littlest bit of flavor to some of the characters, and one badly boilerplate dream sequence scare. There is a pretty substantial 25-minute making of featurette, seven minutes of storyboards and a commentary by Harris, MacDonald and fellow actresses Krysten Cumming and Anna Skellern to round out things.
5 comments
It seems every time this movie is brought up, the internet shits on it which makes me even more interested in seeing it now simply because of that.. Sure, the 1st movie is a classic, but in the end, who cares?? Most movies get the sequel treatment in this day and age so this shouldn't come as a surprise really…
This film blew chunks, though the scene where the cave troll takes a shit from above on our female warriors was funny and curiously arousing.
I'd say the rating is closer to a 5, maybe a point lower if you want to penalize it for pissing away the potential for another jaunt into the claustrophobic darkness to tangle with the crawlers. The movie is surprisingly dull and mediocre in every way imaginable. What's most disappointing is that, as stated, it's pretty much a retread of the original minus all chemistry between actors (none of whom we're given any reason to care about – even the ones returning from the original) and the same eerie atmosphere and sense of tension when the crawlers are around. And the ending is utter shit (and not because it tries so desperately to create a cliffhanger for a third movie). If you really enjoyed the original you'll probably feel that the sequel fails to satisfy any of what you'd expect or hope for in a sequel. It's not the horrible shitfest it could have been (and, in a way, I wish it were, because then it might have been more interesting and worth my time), it simply is. And that's the most frustrating part of all.
The first film is not a classic. Stop kidding yourself.
The original Descent IS a modern classic. With strong acting & characterizations, it really succeeded at balancing suspense and scares. A fantastic scary movie all around. The sequel pretty much sucked. It's competently made, but it is the single biggest retread I've seen in horror movie sequel history. With exacts shots, sequences, and music cues duplicated from the original, it was more annoying than entertaining. The shock-twist ending is rather pointless and nonsensical. The sequel negates the powerful ending of the original, and then at the end, everything ends up basically back to where it started, thus negating its own existence. Honestly, I prefer to think of the first film as a stand-alone….it told a complete story and doesn't need a follow-up.
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