Our Rating: 2.00
With opening helicopter/forest shots from The Shining, a crew of albino beasties imported from a Buffy episode and a pulsing electro-orchestral score that’s pure Morricone circa The Thing, director Neil Marshall certainly knows where to get the best stuff to set his scary table in The Descent. But aside from its high concept ‘ instead of Snakes on a Plane, it’s Chicks in a Cave (with monsters!) ‘ place-setting is almost all Marshall does. For a while, he conjures some pleasing camaraderie from his cast of attractive U.K. unknowns, and some tension as they spelunk their way into a creepy Appalachian cave. But when the monsters show, the movie devolves into rote Ten Little Indians body-count territory. Marshall’s clearly a devotee of the genre and not a misogynistic sadist like Alexandre Aja (High Tension), but he forgets that the sources he appropriates from were about a heckuva lot more than gore and hand-through-window shocks. Still, his superb visual sense and way with thespians mark him as a talent to watch ‘ just not this time. (R)
This article appears in Aug 2-8, 2006.