The story of an all-female caving expedition gone horribly wrong,
The Descent
(2005) is arguably the best of the mid-2000s horror entries to return verve and intensity to the genre. Unlike its peers (
Saw
[2004],
Hostel
[2011], etc.),
was both commercially and critically popular, providing a genuine version of what other films could only produce as pastiche. For Mark Kermode, writing in the
Observer
, it was "one of the best British horror films of recent years," and Derek Elley in
Variety
described it as "an object lesson in making a tightly-budgeted, no-star horror pic."
Time Out
's critic praised "this fiercely entertaining British horror movie;" while
Rolling Stone
's Peter Travers warned prospective viewers to "prepare to be scared senseless." Emphasizing female characters and camaraderie,
is an ideal springboard for discussing underexplored horror themes: the genre's engagement with the lure of the archaic; the idea of birth as the foundational human trauma and its implications for horror film criticism; and the use of provisional worldviews, or "rubber realities," in horror.