31 August 2006
The Descent (4/5)
After our failed plans to see The Descent (recommended by noneotherthan Bobafred and Mingaling) last Friday, we decided to go last night. It was a predictable setup but with enough variation to become one of the better genre flicks. A group of friends go off into the wilderness, one has had a traumatic experience and so is the unreliable observer, non-supernatural problems occur, weird freak-out shit begins, friends die one-by-one. The odd variations really really made this movie though. The first notable twist was that all of the friends are female. This choice allowed the movie to completely abandon the sexual dynamics you usually get, and the writer mostly avoided overly cliched female group roles. Mostly. I also liked the amount of time spent in the caves anticipating the trouble. I've never gone spelunking, but I'm pretty sure now--weird monsters or no--that I don't want to.
I loved what I think were two movie references within the movie. First was the lead's Martin Sheen Apocalypse Now impersonation as she guardedly emerged from a pool of blood. Then, was her blood-drenched Carrie pose and another Carrie moment later when she thrusted her hands out of the ground. Overall, her transformation in the film--and everything that's suggested in the final scene--was the most satisfying. I think my only complaint is that some of the fight scenes were (just a little) too choppy.
- The music and the cinema and the theater posted by sstrader on 13 July 2016 at 8:33:57 PM
- Race, actors, representation posted by sstrader on 22 January 2016 at 5:29:53 PM
- Where was I? posted by sstrader on 9 January 2016 at 10:35:51 AM
- Three Jess Franco films posted by sstrader on 7 November 2015 at 8:44:34 AM
- Notes on We Don't Care About Music Anyway posted by sstrader on 7 June 2015 at 1:06:34 PM