The Descent: Part 2

There are some things in this life you don't have to try to know they're a bad idea; attempting to insert a wasp up the bum of an angry lion, for example, or using your genitals as a storage solution for finely chopped Dorset Naga chillies. On a more personal level, donning a fibreglass hat and heading miles underground into ever narrower passages surrounded by the constant drip of water and hilarious threat of thousands of tons of rock doing a Tetris on my head has always pushed the concept of caving to the bottom of my "to do" list, even more so following Neil Marshall's acclaimed movie The Descent. Let's face it - being trapped underground in claustrophobic conditions armed only with a torch is scary enough without discovering you've stumbled into the home of a group of flesh eating troglodytes. Hell, if I wanted that I'd go clubbing in Watford.

Marshall's film was a tense and desperate struggle, designed to leave the viewer as breathless as the tormented characters. The movie is carefully constructed, slowly burning as you get to know the group of female cavers before hell is unleashed in one of the most effective scare moments of recent years. For all the chaos and terror that ensues The Descent manages to work on as many levels as there are in the tunnel complex. With a deliberately ambiguous ending (at least in the UK version) the film opens debate as to whether the events were literally happening, or the internal battle of an unconscious woman struggling to come to terms with traumatic experiences. It was a resolution that was at once satisfying yet tantalising; hinting the worst and best was yet to come. Seeds were sown deep underground for a fantastic sequel, so why did news of a follow-up produce an instinctive reaction that a return to the dark was a very, very, bad idea?

To be honest, these fears are not entirely fair to Jon Harris' The Descent: Part 2. Perhaps it's partly the fault of the track record of horror sequels and partly that the original was so well loved by many, but people have been anticipating this film with a pessimism that isn't entirely justified. This film is a very competent horror movie when taken on its own and does many things very well. The trouble is you feel it constantly attempts to scramble up to the high ledge the original reached without totally understanding the route Marshall took to get there.

Jon Harris has stated he intended the sequel to be a "seamless continuation of The Descent so you could watch the films back-to-back without any jarring". Opening very shortly after the conclusion of the original, Sarah (Shauna MacDonald) has stumbled from the caves and recovers in hospital. Her mind refuses to process what she experienced underground, and her amnesia refuses to allow her to explain why she's covered in blood or what happened to the rest of the party who went down with her. Sheriff Vaines isn't too happy about decides the traumatic flashbacks she experiences while he questions her are down to her having forgotten to take her meds. Clearly the best thing to do would be to force her back down into the tunnels again, so Vaines insists she comes with him as he searches for the remaining girls. I genuinely believe this would be allowed to happen in real life and that this is not an easy way of shoehorning original characters back into the film.

Quickly gathering up some cavers from the search party that had been looking for Sarah and her chums, Vaines leads the group down the mineshaft Sarah emerged from. His unusual method of psychiatric care is proving most effective on her, as she starts becoming increasingly agitated and having more disturbing visions. Not unexpectedly she snaps, headbutting one of the team and scarpering into the dark. Vaines pulls out a gun and fires into the darkness, summoning piles of rock to fall from the ceiling and seal off the exit. Whoops!

Problems start very early on in the Descent 2, and not just for the characters. There are some fairly serious scripting issues that plague the whole film, not least in the area of believability. People's actions feel shaped by the plot, forcing them to do dumb or unrealistic things to get them into perilous situations. Chief among these is the monumentally twatty Sheriff Vaines who ignores any and all reasonable safety advice in order to obsessively follow a quest he has little reason to care so much about. He runs about in the dark firing his gun, handcuffing people when they need to clamber over narrow ledges and insisting he's just uncovering the truth. Perhaps there's some motivation for his one-man crusade to prove Sarah is a murderer, but if there is the audience aren't made privy to it.

In fact, we don't really get much of a glimpse of who any of the new characters are. The three potholing specialists don't get much rounding beyond basic Leader, Rookie, Concerned Partner stereotypes. Sheriff Vaines is effectively annoying for no good reason, leaving only Deputy Elen Rios to get some brief "I have a child outside and I need to get back to them" moments later on. Sure, her character seems to grow in strength the more clothes she removes, but it's hardly The Hero's Journey.

Part of this is due to the structuring of the story to follow directly on from part one. In order to be a seamless, back-to-back experience, part two needs to get a running start to match the pace the original ended on. To its detriment, this means the sequel can't afford the forty minutes or so that Neil Marshall took building the characters and allowing the audience a glimpse of them under ordinary conditions. As a result, this is jarring. You're suddenly no longer in the company of well-rounded people, but of overused ciphers you don't really care about. Each moment of peril and potential death in the original was a tense, painful, moment as you couldn't predict who would make it out alive - every character was important. Here you feel like the new cast are just potential Crawler fodder. The only exception is the extended and cruel potential fate of Cath (Anna Skellern) who finds herself alone, trapped inside a rockfall like a horrified Kinder Surprise Egg while Crawlers clamber around her, trying to slide their slimy fingers through the stones to her soft flesh.

On the subject of nastiness, the film does build up some imaginative and horrible bloody set pieces; rats crawl from the mouths of corpses, Fingers are bitten off, drills impale skulls and a hugely macabre rope swing, still in place from the first film, is utilised. While nothing comes close to the protracted eyeball gouging from part one, an absolutely disgusting handcuff removal scene is impressively warped and will provoke as many cries of horror as it will amusement. The higher budget means the effects on display here are often slightly better than in the original, so it comes as something of a surprise that an utterly dire effect is used any time someone, or something, falls a long distance. The image looks about as impressive as something from the kid's TV show Knightmare and manages to undermine the film every time it's used.

This is a shame, as the film often looks great. The cinematography is well designed and moody, with damp walls and chains silhouetted by torchlight. It's atmospheric and sparks new life into familiar locations from the first movie, despite constant jump shocks during every quiet moment threatening to spoil the moment. Also impressive is the direction of the fight scenes - Less frenetic and close-up than the original, the frequent combats are actually more watchable this time around and are one of the few areas of improvement that part two can boast.

Early parts of the film where the cast stumble upon locations and items from the first film are very effective, and Jon Harris makes good use of the audience's knowledge of what transpired. Expectations are built as we're aware of dangers the characters have no idea about, and a sense of foreboding builds as they enter places we have previously seen the Crawlers use as ambush points. There's a nice moment where video footage of events from the first film is discovered, replaying a pivotal shock moment and applying a new echo to it. Unfortunately, Jon Harris seems to love this moment so much that he applies it in different variations about four times throughout the film, diluting its power further each time. Coupled with his lack of confidence in the power of silence, this feels like a director not quite sure enough of his own abilities yet, taking something he knows works well and copy / pasting it as many times as he can. Harris should take heart though, as he's shaped some great sequences here and never lets the pace slip. It's just that the ledge Neil Marshall reached was so very high...

And that's the major problem for The Descent: Part 2. It will always be compared to the original, even more so because of the frequent revisiting of moments and locations from that film. This doesn't do part two any favours - The script isn't as honed this time, containing some terrible clunkers that provoked laughter rather than cheers, and the mean-spirited revelatory ending is ruined by a totally expected "shock", but the film isn't all that bad. It's a perfectly capable experience, but can't quite fill its father's climbing boots yet. The Descent: Part 2 ends up being neither as bad as I feared nor as good as I hoped.

Review by Paul Bird