Some movies simply don’t need a sequel thanks to the fact that they made their point perfectly well the first time round. One such movie was Neil Marshall’s The Descent, a mean and moody horror flick that saw a plucky group of female spelunkers violently torn apart, both figuratively as their friendships dissolve, and literally as they’re attacked by a race of underground, humanoid creatures while exploring a subterranean cave system.
To put it simply, not only is the film legitimately, freaking terrifying (especially if you’re claustrophobic), but it hit hard too, setting up some complex rivalries between the two main characters that felt more layered than your average fright fare and I guess it was only a matter of time before a follow up was on the cards.
Thus we got The Descent Part 2; a thoroughly unnecessary sequel that promptly undid a large amount of the original’s plot threads in a string of far fetched plot twists that not only failed to build upon the first film, but neglected to make it interesting either.
Two days after her horrific experience that saw her and her friends mauled by bat-faced, cave dwellers deep underground, a blood-soaked Sarah manages to make it back to the surface in a state of hysteria so intense, it’s actually managed to block her ordeal from her memory. Naturally, the police are suspicious as hell and when they find out that the vast majority of blood on her clothes isn’t actually hers, the search for her missing friends kicks in in earnest.
The main reason for this is that Sarah’s duplicitous friend, Juno, is the daughter of a noticable politician and the grizzled Sheriff Vaines is utterly convinced that Sarah knows something.
It’s with this idea in mind that he proposes something rather crazy. Along with his deputy, Rios, and a clutch of Australian potholing specialists, Vaines insists on going back into the unexplored cave system with Sarah in an attempt to jog the trauma lodged in her clutching memory. While this seems to be about as wise as swimming with sharks while wearing Lady Gaga’s meat dress, everyone, save Rios, seem mostly cool with this plan, so back into the caves they go in an attempt to unravel this mystery.
It doesn’t remain a mystery for long as they first find one of Sarah’s former friends in a highly mutilated state and then stumble upon the pale, blind creatures themselves who see these intruders as the underground monster equivalent of Doordash.
However, among the blood, darkness and torn arteries, we find that Sarah wasn’t the only survivor of the previous massacre in the form of a bloodied Juno and she isn’t quite so eager to forgive Sarah for leaving her to die.
The Descent Part 2 is one of those sequels that not only fails to recapture the magic of the original, but actively goes a fair way to tarnish the first film with some impressively shitty plot points. For example, those of you who know about the two different endings that closed out part 1 should know that the original, British ending is by far the most haunting as an utterly delusional Sarah imagines she’s celebrating her death daughter’s birthday as the “‘Crawlers” stalk in for the kill. However, by firmly insisting that Sarah has survived, the sequel instead makes the far inferior American ending cannon and this is only the first of many instances of Part 2 retroactively making its predecessor weaker.
Yes, I realise this is “only” a horror movie and a lack of logic and common sense is to be expected, but considering that the first flick was so tauntly plotted, the idea to march a highly traumatised woman into the cave where mass murder is expected to have occurred is about a stupid as you can fucking yet. Also, if Vaines is so completely confident that Sarah is the one responsible for serial mutilation, why on Earth would he think that trapping himself underground with her and four fresh victims is an example of intelligent police work?
Elsewhere, we find that sequel also doesn’t seem to understand what actually make the first film so potent, and instead of a close knit group of friends spectacularly imploding while under attack, we get a clutch of instantly forgettable nobodies who are so bland, the crawlers must think they’re made out of tofu. While Shauna Macdonald and Natalie Mendoza still manage to echo their previous intensity, everyone else – including Krysten Cummings’ drippy deputy, Josh Dallas’ cardboard cutout potholer and Gavan O’Herhily’s idiot lawman – have nothing more to offer than the prospect of some cool, violent deaths.
In fact, the only area part 2 even remotely begins to equal its predecessor is with some spectacularly bloody demises and gross out moments that includes gouting neck bites, rats crawling out of the mouths of corpses and an impressive use of a dangling, mouldy corpse left hanging from the last movie that drips blood into the face of the poor soul using it to swing across. However, the notable moment of repulsion comes from a scene where both Sarah and Rios find themselves splashing around in the Crawlers toilet pool that’s punctuated when one of the creature shows up to relieve itself – meaning that the most memorable moment of the sequel to one of the best horrors of the noughties is the sight of a monster taking a shit. Not quite the number 2 I was hoping for…
Finally, helping the movie to jump shark well and truly is the “shock” twist of Juno still being alive despite being left abandoned and wounded two days ago that isn’t that much of a shock when you consider that Natalie Mendoza is second billed in the credits. Worse yet, it even attempts a fumbled sort of reconciliation as the two start to rebond during a frenzied bout of skull cracking and neck puncturing and while some will no doubt see this as some brutal metaphor for women supporting women, it regrettably feels forced – especially with all the history to two have.
Taking the Aliens route to try and sequelize a hit film isn’t anything new, but while the filmmakers throw in bigger Crawlers, nastier gore and ever more stunning twists (the ending is abysmal), with nothing substantially new added to the mix, you just can’t ignore that it’s just another movie with people screaming in caves when Marshall’s masterpiece nailed perfectly it on the first try.
Not so much deep underground, as deeply underwhelming.
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