The Descent

[Charles RB]

Two points:


whatever steam that gives it is blown by a cheesy "horror movie shock" that makes absolutely no sense.

If it ended with Juno's ghost in the car, there's a reason that makes absolutely no sense - that's not the original ending, the whole "escaping from the cave" bit is a brief dream sequence as Sarah's been knocked out after her previous fall. The American distributors decided to cut the original ending and make the dream sequence the new ending because test audiences found it too depressing (and we can't have a depressing end in a horror film!).


Then again, neither does most of the film, especially how these things could have existed for a long time, scarfing down countless spelunkers, in a cave guidebooks describe as well-scouted and safe

They're in an unexplored cave system though. It was stated a third of the way in that they weren't in the cave they thought they were and they didn't know if there was a way out.

[riftt]

yeah, geeze, what was he doing instead of watching the movie? "And then at the end theres this dumb totally random shot of a sled with some rosebud word on it, what is up with that?":rolleyes:

[dancj]

If it ended with Juno's ghost in the car, there's a reason that makes absolutely no sense - that's not the original ending, the whole "escaping from the cave" bit is a brief dream sequence as Sarah's been knocked out after her previous fall. The American distributors decided to cut the original ending and make the dream sequence the new ending because test audiences found it too depressing (and we can't have a depressing end in a horror film!).

I hate it when they ruin films like that :mad:

It's also worth noting that (IIRC) the film left it fairly ambiguous as to whether the creatures in the cave actually existed at all

[Charles RB]

Didn't seem that ambigious to me, what with the monsters running around and viciously attacking people at times when Sarah wasn't there!

What happened to Sarah at the end though, that's ambigious - and all the possibilities are nasty. :(

[Charles RB]

Today's column:


I do admit to having faded out (or maybe nodded off) while the explanation about the caves was going on

Ah, that explains it.

He's got a point that the film is always going to more effective in a pitch black room where you can't press Pause though. (Though it scares the crap out of me and leaves me going "urrrg..." even with the light on - the bit where Holly breaks her leg is nasty...)