The sportswoman Sarah loses her husband and daughter in a car crash, but she survives. One year later, her friends Beth, Rebecca, Sam and Holly, leaded by Juno, invite her to explore a deep cave in the mountains. When the expedition is about three kilometers underground, a rock collapses and blocks the access tunnel, trapping the group inside the cave. With limited supplies, they try to find a way out, but sooner they face a hunger and savage breed of predators.

The Descent (2005)
  • Rating: (80,279 votes)
  • Taglines:The Scariest Movie In Earth » Claustrophobia. Disorientation. Hallucination. Fear. »
  • Runtime:99 minutes
  • Director: Neil Marshall
  • Country:UK
  • Actors:
    Sarah
    Shauna Macdonald
    Juno
    Natalie Mendoza
    Beth
    Alex Reid
    Rebecca
    Saskia Mulder
    Sam
    MyAnna Buring
    Holly
    Nora-Jane Noone
    Paul
    Oliver Milburn
    Jessica
    Molly Kayll
    Crawler - Scar
    Craig Conway
    Crawler
    Leslie Simpson
  • Genres:Adventure, Horror
  • Producers:
    Keith Bell
    associate producer: Northmen Productions  
    Christian Colson
    producer  
    Ivana Mackinnon
    associate producer  
    Paul Ritchie
    co-producer  
    Paul Smith
    executive producer  
  • Plots: A woman goes on vacation with her family and friends and her husband and her daughter encounters a tragic accident. One year later she goes hiking with her friends and they get trapped in the cave. With a lack of supply, they struggle to survive and they meet strange blood thirsty creatures. Written by Lien Dang
The Descent
  • User's comment:Masterful horror film. Spoiler free review by matt_cub

    If nightmare inducing horror is not your bag then the less you know about The Descent the better. Geordie writer-director Neil Marshall has delivered an accomplished, well acted, out and out horror movie that comes as much of a pleasant surprise as his first major feature Dog Soldiers did back in 2002. Shot in a mere 7 weeks The Descent sees a sextet of undeniably attractive action women leaping headfirst into an Appalachian potholing adventure that goes wrong so quickly you are left wondering if any one of them will survive, let alone ever see daylight again.

    There are comparisons to be drawn to Marshall's 'Soldiers of course - again the story is stark and wonderfully economic. Again there is group of six people, predominantly one sex accompanied with a lurking, ominous threat and again there are more nods to popular film culture than you probably realise. The Descent however has a sense of humour that is suitably pitch black.

    Long before the cave appears we play witness to a traumatic event that underlies the plot and serves to both unite and tear apart relationships in equal measure. Mostly affected are fragile Sarah and physically strong Juno, an adrenaline junkie who leads the group further and further beneath the ground. No time is wasted in recreating the primal feel of crawling through tunnels with hard hats scraping the dust from the rocks, choking and inducing paranoia all the way as it lingers in the stale, torchlit air. It's here Marshall gets a little inventive. Playing with various different lighting techniques our heroines become colour coded through scenes via glow-sticks, flashlights and video camera. Sounds echo when visuals are briefly lost and deliciously bone crunching they are too. Events escalate quickly and the whole ride becomes what can only be described as a non-stop relentless assault on the senses that will demand repeated viewing.

    The only thing that will ruin this movie for you is word of mouth, which ironically is exactly what this film will need to become commercially viable. But the less you know, the more you will enjoy it. Have fun spotting references to Carrie and Apocalypse Now by all means, but don't be fooled into thinking this is a mere standard entry into the much saturated genre-movie staple. The Descent will rank as one of the most unashamedly terrifying British films ever made. It was made by people that love good cinema, and it shows. The Descent was made before The Cave, and now has an alternate ending for new audiences.


  • Quotes: Holly: [Sarah has just been scared by a bunch of bats which attacked her. Holly films the bats flying away] Holly: One bat, two bats, fifty bats! Beth: Holly... Fuck off
  • Also known as: El descenso (Argentina), El descenso (Mexico - imdb display title), El descenso (Venezuela), A Descida (Portugal - imdb display title), A barlang (Hungary - imdb display title), Abismo do Medo (Brazil), Cehenneme bir adim (Turkey - Turkish title), Crawlspace (UK - working title), Descent (Japan - imdb display title, English title), I kathodos (Greece - transliterated ISO-LATIN-1 title), Instängd (Sweden), La descente (Canada - French title), Loukussa (Finland), Pád do tmy (Czech Republic - imdb display title), Spilja uzasa (Croatia - DVD title), The Descent (Australia - DVD title), The Descent - Abgrund des Grauens (Germany), The Descent - Discesa nelle tenebre (Italy - imdb display title), The descent (Spain - imdb display title), Zejscie (Poland - imdb display title),

What do you think of this movie? Leave a comment.