The Indecent "Descent"

Are our expectations of horror films so low that whenever a filmmaker comes out with a horror film that's only slightly better, everybody drops a load and won't stop blabbering on about how brilliant it is?

Case in point: The Descent. I heard nothing but good things about it, I went to see it, and it sucked. People wouldn't stop saying how revolutionary it was, and how it redefines the horror genre. But all throughout my viewing, I couldn't help but count how many other horror films had already covered the same ground, and did a much better job at it.

Tom Long at The Detroit News said that the film "revives and electrifies a genre that veers too often toward self-parody." True, recent slasher flicks have started to feel too much like comedies (check: Jason, Freddy, and Chuckie franchises). So much so, that films which are actual parodies of the horror genre (Shaun of the Dead for one) contain genuine scares. But there's a difference between paying homage to the horror classics of the past and ripping off every single classic horror motif, then pasting it all together in an incomprehensible mess that makes no attempt at plausibility, character development, or even a good ending.

A lot of folks have been comparing this film to Alien and for good reason. Both films contain female leads who have to evolve from defenseless supporting characters to bad-ass killing machines. And hey, it's always nice to have a critic mention a classic horror movie on your posters, 'cause then people will think that your movie's good, too!

But there's a little problem: It took Sigourney Weaver's character TWO films to achieve complete bad-assery. In The Descent, the process takes no longer than thirty seconds. It's like "Alien Lite," all the scares, half the plot.

And there are scares, don't get me wrong. But they're not fun scares. Fun scares are when something jumps out at you, but it has a reason to. The scares in The Descent are all for effect, and nothing else. After the fifth or six orchestra sting, I was pretty much able to predict where this film was headed, even though our cave-dwelling heroines weren't.

I'd like to get back to the plausibility of The Descent. Most of the time, plausibility flies out the window of your average horror film, anyway. That's why the average horror film is never a good horror film. The best, however, provide a context and background for the scares. In Alien, they plan ahead by setting their film in the future (how groundbreaking!). That way, they can justify the existence of...hint-hint...ALIEN CREATURES! In The Descent, all events take place in the here and now and, oddly enough, in the Appalachian mountains of North Carolina. So my question to the filmmakers is this: How can you justify flesh-eating, cave-dwelling, no-seeing mutants in present day North Carolina without first establishing that this film takes place either in a parallel universe (like the one in all the "Godzilla" films where everyone in Japan just takes Godzilla for granted and are never surprised when he shows up) or in the future. 'Cause lemme tell you, I live in North Carolina, and I don't run into these mutant things all that much.

Other recent horror films like the Saw franchise (yes, it's a franchise now) and Hostel aren't much better, but at least they're realistic, or at least as realistic as a horror film can be. A deranged serial killer who puts his victims into sinister "puzzles" makes a lot more sense than blind zombies who dwell in caverns underneath the Blue Ridge Parkway. Hopefully, writer/director Neil Marshall will be able to look past his own hype and make the necessary revisions on his next film. Maybe an Alien sequel?