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Poster for The Descent

The Descent

Scream your last breath.

2005 · 1h 40m · R Adventure, Horror
Directed by Neil Marshall

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Overview

After a personal tragedy, Sarah joins her friends on a caving expedition in the Appalachian Mountains. But when a rockfall traps them deep underground, their adventure turns into a nightmare. As they search for a way out, the group discovers they are not alone—lurking in the darkness are savage, cave-dwelling creatures. With rising tension and dwindling trust, the women must fight to survive against both the predators and each other.

Director and cast

Critics on Rotten Tomatoes

Top critics, in their words

All reviews
86%
Tomatometer
Fresh

Marshall could very well be the Caravaggio of the B-movie.

Sarah Lilleyman, TIME Magazine
Rotten

This intermittently effective UK horror thriller carefully establishes the psychological relationships among the women, then squanders this calibrated and generally plausible setup with a series of crude, implausible, and scattershot horror effects.

Jonathan Rosenbaum, Chicago Reader
Fresh

The Descent sustains a level of intensity that most horror films can barely muster for five minutes.

Scott Tobias, AV Club
Rotten

For my money, [the] first 20 or so minutes are the best in the film. Once the real adventure gets underway in the cave, things get less interesting.

Claudia Puig, USA Today
Rotten

While the movie has wonderful moments of unmotivated tension that make sure we're quite ill at ease from the beginning, it's also got a few too many of the kind of cheap boo-scares that indicate a director not fully trusting his grip on you.

Geoff Pevere, Toronto Star

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