One of the best low budget horror movies of recent years was Neil Marshall’s Dog Soldiers. Marshall’s follow-up, The Descent, is now out on R2 DVD, and proves that he’s got an undeniable talent.

His first movie was criticised for being too blokey and too comic, so now he’s made a movie with an almost entirely female cast and only one joke as far as I can remember. The story involves one of the women suffering a personal tragedy, and attempting to recover by going caving with her friends (doesn’t sound too clever to me, and funnily enough…) Not only are the underground scenes horribly claustrophobic, Marshall then adds a bunch of albino subterranean cannibals into the mix and throws the gore around with abandon.

Fortunately for the sensitive viewer and the BBFC, it’s all a bit dark and very snappily edited, but it still turns the tension right up to 11. Special mention for the score by David Julyan, which starts off like a tribute to Carpenter/Morricone’s The Thing but eventually becomes a powerful and moving factor in the movie’s successful mood shift from slasher to tragedy.

The ending is downbeat and a bit incongruous in tone – although I like it more the more I think about it – and the attempts to make Scotland look like the USA don’t really convince, but Marshall deserves your support so get this and frighten yourself. (Unfortunately the US release has been delayed due to the appearance of The Cave, a big studio movie with a similar plot; fortunately this doesn’t seem to be harming word of mouth for Marshall’s movie.)

Mild Peril Rating:

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