The Descent (2005) - Marshall's intensely claustrophobic cave horror

♥♥♥♥

+ Best Monster Movie of the Year + Best Gore Movie of the Year + Best British Movie of the Year

The ingenious poster for Neil Marshall's The Descent

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A group of adrenaline-junkie women friends meet in the smallest populated part of pure nature America, because the American in the bunch wants to take them on a wild cave exploration, which is to mark a new beginning for their friend Sarah, who lost her husband and child tragically a year before.

SPOILER Their death in a car accident is seen in a sequence in the first act, which is very impressive, although our emotional engagement in the tragedy remains absent. Once the women, - who balance among themselves in being tough, reckless and annoying, - finally descend into the cave, the film very quickly becomes extremely scary. The Descent might be the most claustrophobic film ever made.
The lightning and the entire time spent in the impressively created cave is commendable, (cinematographer Sam McCurdy (The Devil's Double (2011))), SPOILER and the cave monsters are gross. I did not care for the ambiguous ending, - but be aware that there are at least two different endings out on different versions of the film, as the US version provides closure, whereas the European one seems to have this ambiguous ending.
The Descent is written and directed by Englishman Neil Marshall (Dog Soldiers (2002)), and it gets your blood pumping!

 

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2005 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I] 

In lieu of a trailer for the film, which isn't on Youtube at the moment, here's a video of director Marshall talking Game of Thrones, which he directed two episodes of, in 2012 and '14

Cost: 3.5 mil. £ (approximately 5.01 mil. $)
Box office: 57.1 mil. $
= Huge hit
[The Descent was shot in England and Scotland with the caves built in the Pinewood Studios outside London. The film's release in the UK was marred by the July 7 2005 Islamist bombings in London, including in its underground system, which undoubtedly cooled some audiences' desires to see a horror movie about being trapped underground for a while. The film competed with another, bigger cave-set horror film, The Cave (2005), but were able to premiere nearly two months before that film and became the hit of the two. In North America, The Descent had an 8.9 mil. $ opening weekend as #5 and grossed 26 mil. $ (45.5 % of the total gross). The 2nd and 3rd biggest markets were the UK with 4.8 mil. $ (8.4 %) and France with 2.7 mil. $(4.7 %). Roger Ebert gave the film a perfect 4-star rating. The Descent Part 2 (2009) is also a (much less successful) fact. The Descent is certified fresh at 85 % with a 7.3 critical rating on Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of The Descent?