User reviews

The plot: A naive reporter finds a bigger story than she was expecting when she visits a underground homeless camp in the abandoned subway tunnels of New York City.

This is a very low budget film. Unfortunately, it's not one of those inventive independent films that makes up for its lack of budget with bold, new ideas and a maverick spirit. Instead, it's pretty much what you'd expect from a direct-to-video Danny Trejo film: a cool villain, a weak story, and a bit of violence. For some people, that will surely be enough to carry the entire film, but if you're not a Trejo fanatic, you can probably skip this one.

The biggest problem is that the homeless people generally don't look very homeless. I'm not saying they have to smell like urine and mumble incoherently, but these people are way too pretty and healthy for me believe that they've actually suffered. One of them has what looks like a brand new guitar. I'm not even sure that I could afford that guitar. You don't have to go all method and make the actors live in a homeless community for a week, but more realism wouldn't have hurt.

Some of the characters were pretty cool. Of course, I liked Danny Trejo, and, of course, he played a badass villain. He was sort of interesting: part ubermensch, part cult leader, and part Occupy Wall Street protester. I'm not sure how well all those things mix, especially when he'd segue from discussing the plight of the homeless to some Nietzsche-inspired rant about how the weak deserve their plight. Still, for Trejo fanatics, it's enough to make the film watchable, and he delivers it with his trademark hostility and danger. As soon as he enters, it's easy to believe that he's the most dangerous man in any room.

The rest of the characters weren't so interesting. Most of them were underwritten and depended on cultural archetypes to give them weight: the crazy homeless guy, the burnt-out ex-cop, the pushy reporter, etc. As long as you don't mind a film full of stock characters that never really transcend their stereotypes, it's fairly survivable. A few of them are well-spoken and even fairly well acted (I liked the crazy homeless guy), but most of the dialogue ends up being clichés, especially after the midpoint. Prior to that point, it seemed like they might be verging on something interesting or insightful, but then they just wander into hack screen writing 101 and never leave.

The plot is fairly traditional, and it holds no real surprises. It's the same film that you've seen time and time again, only this time its set underground. If you just want to see Danny Trejo act like a badass, this is a fair choice. If you want more than that, I'd say skip it. I like films about underground societies, but this one really didn't work very well. For an artsy, quirky take on the subject, try Kontroll, an amazing Hungarian film. For a more fantasy-based take, try Nail Gaiman's Neverwhere. I'm not a huge fan of Gaiman, but even the worst of his work is better than this.

Sorry but this movie does not work for we.

Danny Trejo being on the cover was enough for me to watch the film, but too bad his stardom did nothing to make the film better. I've seen him save his fair share of B-movies just by appearing on screen for a few minutes and being bad ass, but this movie is not it.

I did like the concept of a filmmaker documenting the people living in New York City's subway system, with one of them played by Trejo, seeing himself as a messenger of God who slays the wicked, and by wicked I mean the privileged Wall Street types, so obviously he's able to find a group of people willing to help him rid the city of this vermin.

The film making is very lackluster, enough so that the found footage documentary style the film is doing seems so played out. You know the film is cheap just by the fact that they can't get Trejo to even comment to a half hour worth of footage. Not really good when he's your main villain and the most interesting out of his army.

Danny's appearance is truly just a few minutes and it's not worth the trouble to see it just for that. I've seen him make a cameo like apprentice in far better B-movies like, In the Blood, which is worth seeing, so see that.

Review: What an awful movie. I lost interest after the first 15 minutes and I really struggled to stay awake through the rest. I didn't know what was happening from one scene to the next and I didn't really care. I know that it was about this underworld with good and evil living there but that was about it. Everyone that starred in the movie was overacting except for a Trejo who was pretty cool. By the end of the film I didn't know who was who or what was what and I wasn't about to rewind the film to find out. It amazing me how films like these actually get a budget. Awful!

Round-Up: None of the actors in this film, except for Trejo, looks familiar so I can't really comment about there previous work or there careers. The leading character got on my nerves after a while and his whole moody persona was annoying. I understand that the character had a shady past and the whole dark underworld feel was needed for the character, but it was hard to watch. Basically it was another bad choice on my behalf but I'm sure that this type of film has it's audience, somewhere in the wilderness. 

I recommend this movie to people who are into there thrillers about a dark underworld controlled by a evil man who doesn't like outsiders. 1/10

It's a a B movie of course...but not as bad as some are reviewing. Danny has definitely payed better parts but not too bad...just enjoy the ride.

When I seen this sitting in the DVD bin I thought scores of people would be scrambling to get the only copy but that wasn't the case. After I watched it I learned why nobody wanted it.

A lady decides to do a documentary on the homeless people living under the subway system who look more like Survivor contestants. Danny Trejo has more screen time than usual playing a gang leader who is always battling the other homeless people. The whole thing is just atrocious giving you some time to catch up on your sleep.

I'll try and get in store credit for this DVD telling them something is wrong with it. I won't be lying.

'20 Ft Below: The Darkness Descending' was another film seen with not high expectations. Was worried as to whether it would be silly and do nothing new with a tired concept. It was though another film seen out of curiosity for primarily Danny Trejo, who can save bad projects and is one of those watchable enough actors too often poorly used.

It was a good thing that expectations were not high because '20 Ft Below: The Darkness Descending' fails to deliver in many, make that most or even almost every, ways. It is not one of the worst films seen, of its genre and overall. It's not even among the worst of my recent film viewings which has seen a lot of above average to gem standard stuff and just as much wastes of potential.

That Trejo is the best thing about it, being the actor who tries most without over-compensating and there are signs of his bad-ass persona, but criminally underused in a caricature role with a far too short screen time says a lot about the film's quality. Generally the actors try too hard and come over as cartoonish.

Didn't find anything intriguing, investable or rootable about any of the characters and the dialogue is both stilted and over-heated. The direction is flat.

Furthermore, the story just doesn't grab the attention, gets pretty silly to the wrong side of camp and hammy and is not easy to follow at times due to being an under-explored kitchen sink of different tones and ideas. It looks poor, very murky and drab in lighting and filmed with next to no care or coherence.

In summary, fails to deliver and even Trejo can't save it. 2/10 Bethany Cox

Don't judge this by the bad reviews. Give it a try first. Very good acting and direction. Lots of satisfyingly glib dialogue.

I'm honestly shocked by the ratings that others have been giving this movie! Maybe it's my community outreach homeless project that we've been doing my ex and I at the state capitol or maybe it's the fact that this is just like a comic book and I am a total comic book Junkie but I love this movie and I think I'm going to have to buy it after watching it once! The acting is spot-on, the script is spot-on, this cinematography is amazing, this is probably my favorite even above Sons of Anarchy and Dusk till Dawn is that my boys been in! All around this is just an amazing movie there's not one thing about it that I would change at all! I'm completely impressed the cast in the crew are to be commended for the amazing work they did!

First, I want to start the same way I start all my reviews. I love horror movies. I grew up watching them since I was a little kid.

This movie I don't consider a horror movie, but more of an action movie. Did it get a little dark sometimes? Yeah it did. Was it a little bit bloody and gory yes a little but to me, It was more action than it was horror. Even though it was marked horror.

I'm not usually a big fan of Danny Trejo. I just never enjoyed his films. This is one film. I can actually say that I really Enjoyed watching him.

All of the people in this movie did a great job in acting. The main girl Kinga Philipps I is the only person where I did not enjoy her acting at all. It was awful In my opinion.

Michael Rene Walton Played his character so well! He really did a great job portraying crazy.

I would definitely recommend this movie.