FAQ

Six thrill-seeking friends—Juno Kaplan (Natalie Mendoza), Sarah Carter (Shauna Macdonald), Beth O'Brien (Alex Reid), Sam (MyAnna Buring) and Rebecca (Saskia Mulder)Van Nuy, and Holly Miles (Nora-Jane Noone)—decide to go spelunking in Boreham Cavern somewhere in the Appalachian Mountains of North Carolina. Once inside the cavern, Juno reveals that they aren't in Boreham Cavern but an unknown cave system that Juno wants to explore and become famous for naming it. When the tunnel suddenly collapses behind them, they have nowhere to go but forward in hopes of finding another exit, but they soon come to realize that they are not alone in the caves—they are being pursued by a pack of bloodthirsty humanoid creatures. The film features both a physical and a metaphorical descent. As the spelunkers descend further and further into the cavern, they also suffer a descent into madness.

The Descent is based on an original screenplay written and directed by English filmmaker Neil Marshall. A sequel, La descente 2 (2009), followed in 2009.

The humanoid creatures, referred to as "Crawlers" in the credits, are, according to director Marshall...

cave men that never left the cave; they evolved over thousands of years, living down there in families. They've lost their eyesight; they have acute hearing and smell; and they function perfectly in the pitch black.

It is shown and implied in this movie, as well as the sequel, that the Crawlers do, however, come to the surface to hunt animals such as wolves, deer, etc., and to bring their carcasses back to the caves for food.

Other than setting up a motivation for the women to go on their cave trip (to reaffirm their friendship and give Sarah some distraction), one possible implication is that Sarah's husband Paul (Oliver Milburn) was distracted in his driving by the presence of Juno and, as such, his suggested affair with Juno was indirectly responsible for his and his daughter's deaths. The aftermath of the accident and Juno's involvement with Paul are played out on a character level in the rest of the film as well. Apparently, Juno left the country immediately after the accident while Sarah was still in the hospital, which is a source of much tension between Juno and Beth in the second act of the movie. In addition, the loss of her husband and daughter in the crash is what begins Sarah's personal descent into the dark parts of her mind.

One explanation is that ancestors of the crawlers painted the pictures at some point in their evolution when they still had sight. However, the crawlers seem to be feral predators, showing no evidence of sophisticated skills that require at least some degree of intelligence, like art or painting. That would mean that their ancestors had these skills but lost them to evolve into instinct-driven killers, which seems doubtful. It is more likely that the paintings were done by prehistoric humans who entered the cave, but, to their detriment, found out it was inhabited by these hunters.

Director Marshall said on the Region 2 DVD commentary that it was possible that she went slightly insane in the darkness of the cave (a "descent into madness") and imagined the crawlers and killed her friends. He also has said on the cast's commentary that he filmed but cut out a shot of a silhouetted crawler at the end of the hospital corridor during Sarah's nightmare sequence (when she is running through the halls) to plant the idea that the crawlers were merely figments of her imagination. This has given weight to the interpretation that Sarah, not the crawlers, killed her friends.The sequel follows the reasoning that the crawlers are very real. However, since Part 2 was conceived much later, the first movie was intended to be ambiguous when it came out and may be viewed in this regard.

Some viewers have speculated that this is a reference to the lives of all six girls being snuffed out. Another theory is that it was a "happy accident." Her daughter was five when she died in the car accident and since the majority of the film takes place a year later, it could be assumed her daughter would have been six years old and Sarah is celebrating that 6th birthday with her daughter (even though it was a vision and not reality). However, on the DVD commentary, Neil Marshall and his editor acknowledge that this was simply a continuity error.

The movie had a longer, very different ending on its original release in the UK (unrated version), which was trimmed for the US release (R-rated version).

The Descent is most often compared to two other movies-Within (2005) and La caverne (2005). All three movies have similar plots and are shot in a manner provoking the greatest amount of claustrophobia. Another that follows a similar plot/theme is Là-haut comme ici-bas (2014).

The Descent Enhanced Story Presentation, with highlighted dialogue and over 100 screenshots placed in sync with the story.