The Film That Most Scared Me as an Adult: The Descent

Particularly the U.K. ending

CAUTION: SPOILERS AHEAD!!

The blood-soaked poster was enough to make me steer clear as a kid while walking around Blockbuster. Even the version with the human pyramid skull face was too much for little me. I wasn’t allowed to watch horror movies for my whole childhood. I grew up in a religious household that didn’t even allow Harry Potter books because of the “witchcraft.” My family has since made a full and redeeming 180°, so all is well.

The warning against horror movies stuck with me through adulthood. It wasn’t until I started dating my boyfriend that I allowed myself to dip my toe in the horror pool. Yes — I did it for a boy. We started with The Ring, (my runner-up for the film that has most scared me), and worked our way up to The Descent.

A DEEP DIVE

The Descent premiered in the United Kingdom in 2005, clocking in at just under 2 hours runtime. It was later released in the U.S. in 2006. (More on the U.S. release later). Written and directed by Neil Marshall, the female ensemble weaves through a maze of caves, sinking deeper and deeper into darkness, hunted by unnatural predators.

It’s all about the setup with horror films.

We meet Sarah and her friends on a rafting excursion — immediately we see that they are capable adventurers. It’s always more compelling when you have competent characters who end up scared in a movie. Instead of shouting, “Don’t go in there!” you’re whispering in wonder, “I have no idea how they’re going to get out.”

On the drive home from the rafting trip, Sarah’s husband and daughter are killed in a car accident. A year later, Sarah’s friends set up a caving expedition in the Appalachian Mountains. The audience can also guess at this point that Juno, one of Sarah’s friends from the rafting venture, had an affair with Sarah’s husband.

Fear of the unknown dwells deep in every human. That fear is twofold in The Descent: the unexplored territory of the cave and the creatures that lurk in its depths.

Our setup starts strong: Grieving wife and mother, a band of expert outdoor adventurers in an unknown environment, the threat of predators around any corner, and a gutting betrayal awaiting Sarah’s discovery.

If a tree falls, and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?

“In space, no one can hear you scream.”

Can anyone hear you shout if you’re two miles underground in an undiscovered cave, hunted by demons?

THE HORROR

The Descent masters the art of linear horror. Every depth the women reach brings exponential terror. It’s ruthless and excruciating, right to the end.

The practical set of tunnels and cave pockets the production built suffocates the characters and the audience. I’m not claustrophobic, but you for sure as hell wouldn’t find me squeezing through these crevices.

The oppressive environment is pitch black, slick and wet, with a foul stench in the air. The stakes are instantly high.

The team experiences a cave-in right at the beginning of their journey, condemning them to push further down in the hope of finding an exit. They find 100-year-old abandoned equipment from hikers who ventured this way long before them. A bad omen. Their food and headlamps cannot last forever, so the race is on.

Not only do they grow lost, but they learn they’re in entirely the wrong cave system. Juno thought it would be a bonding experience to discover something “new” together. The gals try to keep their heads and remain professional, but they all know what this means. No one on the surface knows where they are, their maps are useless, the only way they could be found is if someone stumbled upon the site, they’re caved in with waning energy, and their trust in each other is shaken. It’s hopeless.

But they press on. These are brave, capable women. There’s no choice but to venture deeper.

That’s where the body horror really takes off. We’ve already seen the gruesome imagery of Sarah’s husband impaled with metal rods from their car crash. Now, we see Holly break her leg (NOT what you want to happen when your means of survival relies on crawling and climbing). The rope shreds Rebecca’s gloves and slices through her palms. Someone will take a pickaxe to the neck.

This is all before the monsters really show up.

Cave-dwellers hunt the women as they descend. Blind, Gollum-like creatures, covered in blood, mud, and who knows what else, navigate the caves flawlessly. The major reveal of the crawlers comes over halfway through the movie.

I am notoriously steely during jump scares.

This is the only moment in any movie where I not only physically jumped, but I screamed. Not a squeaky shriek — a real scream.

The movie has worked hard to raise your adrenaline and keep it up steadily. There’s already been environmental, interpersonal, and body horror. There’s no music leading up to this moment either — no ominous strings to set up the scare. The Descent doesn’t need it. The scare just happens.

This reveal could have come across as hokey in another movie, but at this point in the film, you’ve sunk into the anxiety and terror with the women as they’ve descended further into this hell. You believe anything could be down there.

As the women are hunted, the body horror continues, escalating until Sarah falls into a pit of blood, excrement, and bones.

It. Is. Disgusting.

Practical effects are always the more terrifying option. The only visual effects to really take place in The Descent were likely wire removal on the actors and set extensions to build the world of the cave. Otherwise, the crawlers are dudes in costumes with epic make-up, the blood gushes realistically, and the scope of their doom surrounds them.

“A HAPPY ENDING”

When the film was released in the U.S., about one minute of footage was cut from the ending. Sarah escapes, stumbles to her car, speeds through the woods, pulls over when she’s officially safe, cries, and then screams at the sight of Juno’s bloody ghost sitting next to her. This sets up U.S. studios for a potential sequel (which exists, but I have not watched it on principle).

The horror with this ending is of course that Sarah has to go on living with no husband, no daughter, no friends, and the most horrific lived experience ever to haunt her until the end of her days.

The original ending, I argue, is more haunting.

All of the same beats from above happen. But as soon as Sarah screams upon seeing Juno’s ghost, she wakes, lying in the cave, still covered in blood. Screeches from the crawlers echo in the distance. She looks up to see her daughter with a birthday cake. A ghost? A hallucination? We aren’t sure. Sarah smiles and keeps her eyes fixed on her child. The camera pulls out to reveal Sarah, eyes still fixed in front of her, but in place of the cake is her flickering torch, and in place of her daughter is nothing. The creatures’ howls grow stronger, we cut to black, the end.

There is of course the obvious horror that Sarah never escapes the cave and is condemned to endure the fate the crawlers have in store for her. There is also the horror of Sarah’s descent into madness. She has grown more feral the longer she’s been down there, navigating like a crawler, covered in blood, a wild look in her eyes, and even popping a crawler’s eyeballs with her thumbs. She has lost all her friends, executed her revenge on Juno, and now, she’s completely hallucinating; her mind is fully lost.

What I find most scary is the peace that this ending brings both Sarah and the viewer. This is the definition of a nightmare scenario, and yet, I’m okay with it. So is Sarah.

What is left for her on the surface? Nothing. At least here, even if it’s just in her mind, she’s with her daughter, safe and happy for a moment…

Sure, the U.S. ending is horrific because she has to live with this experience, but this is the ending that sticks with me and shows back up in my nightmares.

The Descent is a film that rewards rewatches. There are plenty of scary movies that shake you to your core, but you can only watch once (a.k.a. me and The Ring).

Horror is one of the most creative genres and hardest to execute. You have an audience entering it expecting to be scared, and then you have to scare them. It’s even harder to make it a scare that can be repeated upon a second viewing. Personally, I can never watch The Ring again, but I could watch The Descent any number of times and still end up tucking my feet under the blanket so the crawlers don’t get me and walking away with a sick-hearted feeling.

If you wish to buy a copy of the U.K. version of The Descent, then you’re looking for the Original Unrated Cut. I stumbled upon it at Amoeba after a year of searching and my hands were literally shaking with excitement and anxiety, relieved I had finally found it.

Thanks for reading! Happy spelunking.