Dir. Jon Harris, 94mins, USA , 2009
Cast: Shauna MacDonald, Natalie Jackson Mendoza, Krytsen Cummings, Joshua Dallas, Doug Ballard
Review by Matthew Rodgers
Gus Van Sant's Psycho , Weird Creatures , Kingdom of the Crystal Skull , and Rob Zombie's Halloween . All movies that nobody really wanted or needed to happen. Add to that list this by-the-book sequel to Neil Marshall's chilling claustrophobic classic.
Adding Part 2 suggests in some way that the first instalment was incomplete and for all intents and purpose it was - well, for UK audiences anyway.
The last time we saw blood splattered pot-holer Sarah (MacDonald) she was perched on a ledge above a gaping chasm of nothingness, staring into the face of an apparition of her dead child. It was a bleak ending but one that was self-contained and unquestionably tragic, whilst also providing a macabre form of closure for the sole-surviving character.
This sequel discards that and instead decides to pander to the US audiences, who saw our heroine claw her way to freedom (a scene that was revealed as a cruel hallucination in the original and best version). So now we find her borderline comatose in a hospital bed but with serious questions to answer about the whereabouts of her missing companions. What better way to do this than to coax her back down into the cavernous hell, so that a new team of monster mash can meet a sticky end?
The Descent: Part 2 is riddled with more plot holes than our protagonists stick their heads through, the first and most notable being the ludicrous mechanisms used to convince Sarah to return underground. It's clearly established that she conveniently has amnesia, so where is the logic in taking her to remember the way? The first film was admittedly lean in the plot department, but here that efficiency is substituted for stupidity. It's straight from the Alan Grant (Sam Neill's character in Jurassic Park ) school of convincing. Indulge me for a second whilst I paraphrase:-
William H Macy's character in Jurassic Park III: Dr Grant, ignore my ridiculous moustache and return to Jurassic Park III with me?
Dr. Alan Grant: No.
William H Macy's character in Jurassic Park III: How about we give you some money?
Dr. Alan Grant: Alright then.
Enough of that. Putting aside the ludicrous set-up, Jon Harris (editor on the first film) at least uses the continuation/replication to successful effect. Whilst not as immediate, the scenes of claustrophobia, which were always the strongest aspect of the original, are still prevalent. A particular boulder prison that encases one of our hapless explorers is horribly intense in its execution and the underwater caverns are suffocating and intimately well shot during an escape set-piece.
Another plus is the “ick” factor. There is plenty of goo and gunk flying about this time around, even if that does mean swinging on a hanging corpse or being submerged in a faecal bath results in a tone that veers too far from the intended horror.
The assorted cast are hardly worth a mention as they are uniformly bland. Even the returning MacDonald is neutralised in terms of character development.
Part I2 is frustrating because it's similar in nearly every way to Marshall 's excellent genre pic but lazily derivative of it, a true copy n paste effort. And if that's the case why not just watch the first one on DVD ?
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