The Descent Review

1. By Matthew Hillary 15 October 2015
Is The Descent worth watching?
The Descent is great example of a gory, slasher and bloody
film, but does it really fulfil the genre of horror?. The film
starts with 6 females who meet up and start to get ready to go
into a cave. So in the film you would think how in the world is
this a horror its more of an adventure film. As the film
continues you start to realise why it is a horror. I feel this is
good because not many producers make two part films with
different genres. The film does have ordinary film features as
it has the same start as most films have a start, middle and a
end. The film also has shots on where they are promoting a
product like land rover and coors beer as they leave the shot
on these object for like 5 seconds so the audience realises
them. i feel this is quite bad as its just a way the producers can
make easy money. The fact that at the end of the film they
show Sarah leaving the cave looking like she is going to be hit
by a moving van and then quickly jumps back to the cave seen
where she ‘accepts her death’ and sits just in front of the fire.
I feel there is just no need and no concept on showing the van
scene as this has nothing to do with being in a cave. The fact
that the film took 9 months to edit a lot of work was put into
this film to make it perfect. In my opinion i feel that this is
Page 1
Characters in film
Juno - Natalie Mendoza
Sarah- Shauna MacDonald
Beth- Alex Reid
Sam- Myanna Buring
Holly- Nora-Jane Noone
Rebecca- Saskia Mulder
Paul- Oliver Milburn
Style and Content
The Descent uses many visual
effect in the film. For example
they use CGI (Computer
Generated Imagery) when a
pole goes through Paul’s head.
This is a great example of CGI
because if you slow down the
film in frames the pole is blurry.
They also use prosthetics in
the film when Holly leg breaks
and her bone is pierced
through her skin and the bone
is sticking out her leg. This is a
great example of prosthetics
as the makeup artist made the
fake leg look real as blood was
pouring out of it. As i
mentioned earlier The Descent
has an unusual style in genre
as the film starts off like an
adventure film and ends like a
slasher and gory film.
FILM REVIEWS
THE DESCENT

2. By Matthew Hillary 15 October 2015
really good as it show how much time and effort is put into
the film for the audience, but if they had more money could
they make the film better? In my opinion i feel that The
Descent could do better if they had more money as the use of
CGI in the film could be improved and also the lighting could
be improved as when i was watching it i found it quite
difficult to notice what was going on as most of the film was
pitch black, but the films in a cave and i feel the producer did
this to make the audience feel like they were with the
character in the cave as well and also the fact that they used a
handheld camera to film some parts of the descent was proof
the producer wanted to involve the audience. In my opinion i
feel that if this film was a game i would be quite interesting as
how would the producers of the game would make it would it
be 3rd person or would it be 1st person. Overall i like some
parts of The Descent was really good and effective but parts
of the film could be improved. So i give this film 3 and a half
stars because there is room of improve.
Page 2
Meaning
The film industry have many
rules when making films and in
The Descent the producers
followed these rules. For example
When Juno and the girl first go
into the cave and realise that the
cave hasn't even been
discovered. this is called isolating
the victim or in The Descent its
victims, another example of a rule
The Descent followed is called
curiosity kills. This is when Juno is
curious of the cave and wants to
discover and name the cave a
name of her own. By doing this,
this gets her friends killed and
also making Sarah act and look
weird as the fact that she lost her
husband and daughter if one
thing but losing her friends is
another, with all that on top it
must be really difficult to live and
also look at Juno as Juno was
hinting to the audience of some
sort of affair between with Paul
(Sarah’s husband). I feel that the
uses of red in the film is really
strong in The Descent as their is a
lot of blood in this film this made
me think of evil, also most of the
lighting was red as the film was
nearly dark that it was hard to
notice what was what. The
producers were cleaver with the
lighting as they used natural
lighting sources like fire and flash
lights from the climbing gear the
girls used.