The Descent Part 2 - How's This For A Good Idea...

Really? You're going back down? With the one survivor from the first film whom you very logically suspect is a psychotic slasher? And without telling anyone where you're headed except the creepy country bumpkin? I'll admit it from the outset that there are major plot holes to open this movie and get the camera back into the cave system that it loves so very much, but you have to expect that. To replicate the terror of the original, some excuse had to be generated to get Sarah (Shauna Macdonald) back into the place where she had experienced so much damn trauma. With this in mind, you can accept the gaping plot holes simply as a rudimentary plot mechanism access the setting that made the first one so great.

With that said, this is undoubtedly not a classic like the first film. Yeah, it's scary and intense and gutting and painful, but it's almost an imitation of the first but lacking some of its credibility and characteristics that set The Descent apart from other films. The all female cast is replaced with a more conventional coed sacrificial offering. The true human motivations are lost and replaced with some people doing really, really stupid things (I know what I'll do! I'll fire my gun in a creaking, unstable mineshaft structure! Hurrah!). Even our old friend Sarah - rather than explain to her new spelunking group the danger of their situation as her memory slowly recovers the events of the first film - simply runs off into the darkness. She'll later regret her choice. Who'd have thunk it?

The plot sees Sarah popping out of the first movie covered in the blood of all the other girls. She gets picked up and dropped in hospital with total memory loss/suppression, then taken out again to accompany a secret search group when a sniffer dog tracks the girls' scents to an abandoned mineshaft some distance away from the cave they registered themselves as visiting. Once helped down by a mysterious local farmer archetype, her memories slowly start returning and their already stupid plan gets really stupidly out of control. The creatures are still there and they're gonna need a fair dig to get out alive. Some unexpected plot turns pop up, and some cameos of other girls from the original abound.

Neil Marshall stood aside for this instalment and let Jon Harris (the editor on The Descent) take the reigns. While Harris ultimately does a respectable job and manages to generate his own take on the material, the story just isn't as strong. However, the scares are still there, and still scary. The very first reveal looks set up to be a cut-copy moment from the first, but the actual 'jump' puts a neat twist on it that those familiar with the  first will appreciate (damn heat-sensing camera technology to hell...). Two other key factors he really makes his own are the creature design and the display of violence. The 'crawlers' in The Descent were kind of slimy and organic looking, whereas here they're just downright fucking mean. Their faces have a kind of scarring probably from years of inbreeding and look more adept when it comes to vicious bar fights (which ensue with great regularity). They're imbued a sort of ferociousness, more like wild animals than the weird cavemen of the original. This last point leads me ever onwards - the violence in the sequel is more explicit. You see some gratuitous shots of mayhem and gore which is almost justified considering how much more antagonistic this flick makes the crawlers, but it provides a contrast with the original's preference for suspense and taut thrills. While this isn't necessarily a bad thing, when you get a full frontal of a head getting smushed in a rockfall, you feel almost like it takes less skill to generate this kind of movie. It's not just the gore, it's the gross-out content too. There's one moment where you just wonder how far the film-makers were going just to elicit a few reactions from their audience. I'm not going to spoil it, but it is just seriously yukky, and that the characters involved in the scene have to stay silent during their particular realisation... it's unfathomably filthy.

There is still an emotional core that pulses strong here. The relationship between the young cave searching couple is nicely constructed and the mother-daughter bond that drives the deputy's desire to survive is a thematic powerhouse when aligned with Sarah's loss. The scene in which they're forced to leave one of their party behind trapped in a rock choke is ruthless - the lack of mucking about with the necessary decision makes their loss all the more keenly felt, like you're experiencing it with them in real time. The cinematography dominated by the palette afforded the crew by the dark is still intense and claustrophobic and the score still does its job well.

The ending is very well played. DON'T READ THE REMAINDER OF THIS PARAGRAPH IF YOU'RE NOT A HUGE FAN OF SPOILERS. Are you kidding me? Are you serious? For the love of Hugh Jackman, I mean come on. Is it really so bad to give a viewer hope at the end of a horror film these days? The ending is so phenomenally crushing it hurts to relive it. Sarah, in the ultimate act of sacrifice, gives up her own life to save the deputy (so she can see her daughter again... nawwww) who escapes into the open and runs away. Before being knocked the fuck out by the creepy country fella who you've totally forgotten by now and it turns out is in cahoots with the crawlers, and who then drags her unconscious body back to the opening of their dingy dungeon-cave hybrid. It hurts so bad you want to cry. I finished this movie at midnight on a Saturday with absolutely no plans to go out, then found myself in Iguana Bar an hour later simply because I needed to suppress that pain. This elevates the film somewhat. You walk out feeling like you've been sucker punched, and you  remember the movie as being more intelligent than it actually was.

DJ Cheeky Wingz - who has apparently proven to be a crowd favourite - will now alert you all as to his take on this horrific piece of the horror puzzle:
Once again Ridley Scott has shown he is more than capable of making something really quite good. The movie draws from the logic shown by Russian commanders at the battle of Versailles and begins on a ship and ends on a ship as is customary for people in horror films and yet it is this form of camaraderie that makes The Descent Part 2 really quite funny in some instances because the characters aren't aware that they are in fact giant seagulls in disguise and are part of the bigger picture. But I'll let you decide for yourselves. If you're known for your ability to eat as much as you can or you are perhaps quite funny sometimes then this movie is sadly not for you. I would give this movie a young unbridled almond for its effort in making life hard for viewers.

I feel like I've talked it down to much. It's very passable, and probably a whole lot better than most horror sequels through the virtue of the strength of the first - that's to say it has a strong central scare tactic to build on. I still highly recommend seeing it, but not as much as the first. I bequeath The Descent Part 2 a score of 8 inches out of a foot and a special warning  - don't watch it if you're feeling quasi-suicidal, as despair is a dish best served without a predilection for self-harm.

Check out the trailer here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oJ1ev18g0CU