The Descent: Part 2 (www.the-usher.com)

"What are those things?"

With the all girl caving team missing for two days, Sheriff Vaines (O’Herlihy) and the mountain rescue team search the cave region but to no avail. When Sarah is found wondering along a road covered in blood, the Sheriff is desperate for her to tell them what happened but Sarah has no memory of anything. As Sarah comes around in hospital, the doctors inform Sheriff Vaines that the blood was not her own. Believing that Sarah was involved in the disappearance of the missing girls, the Sheriff and the rescue team take Sarah back into the cave, hoping that she will remember where her friends are but they are all about to discover that they should have never returned to the caves.

In 2005, British writer director Neil Marshall brought us a horror movie that was a highlight of the genre but can the sequel continue the story?

When Neil Marshall wrote and directed ‘The Descent’, the film was rightly named one of the horror highlights of the 00s. Those who watched the original cut of the movie in the UK saw that the story of Sarah and her friends ending in way that would have not seen the story continue. This didn’t go down well with test screening viewers over in the US however and the finale was changed to allow a continuation of the creatures that live within the mountain caves. Four years later in 2009, the sequel continues the story but unfortunately doesn’t take it any further.

With writer/director Neil Marshall moving on to bigger projects, the story was continued with new writers and a new man at the helm of the production. The film picks up a few days after the disappearance of Sarah’s caving party and introduces the local sheriff, his deputy and the cave rescue team. We also see the return of Shauna Macdonald as Sarah, the only survivor from the group of girlfriends that entered those caves a few days before. While a continuation of the story is better than just sending another group of people into the caves as a rehash of the original but what we end with is just that.

Using the old movie clichéd plot point of memory loss, Sarah is discovered wondering in the forest near the caves covered in blood that is not her own. Of course the local sheriff, played by Gavan O’Herlihy, thinks that Sarah is faking it to cover up something going extremely wrong in the caves. He then forces her to accompany them back into the caves with the cave rescue team but the dark truth lies in wait for them. What we have here is just another way of getting a party of victims into the caves for the monsters to feed on. A cross between humans and bats, the blind creatures with sensitive hearing do not get any more explanation or back story about their existence but are just there again to shock you and eat anyone who enters their cave system. This lack of developments means that the film is just more of the same with only a slight twist during the final adding any additional growth to the franchise.

‘The Descent: Part 2’ could have been something special if Neil Marshall had have been involved. Instead we have a half-hearted continuation of the story which basically replays the first movie. Even with bucket loads of blood, gore and the occasional fright, this is a lacklustre sequel to a superior original, making you wonder why it was made in the first place.

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The Descent

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2009