1. The Descent is a terrible movie.
2. Spelunking, diving, flying, etc.—If you need that much technology to put yourself in a potentially lethal situation, that’s somebody’s way of telling you, “Don’t do it, stupid.”
3. If you willingly engage in potentially lethal activities and something terrible—say, being eaten by cave mutants—happens to you, that’s not an accident. That’s the aforementioned voice of wisdom’s way of saying, “I told you so, stupid.”
4. I found it acutely embarrassing that 100% of the stupidity in this movie was perpetrated by women.
5. Although I was grateful there wasn’t a gratuitous lesbian sex scene.
6. Although, given the overall ghastliness of this movie, I wouldn’t be surprised if there was one and it got cut for the TV version.
7. Lacking a gratuitous lesbian sex scene, men feel they’ve been tricked into sitting through two hours of what is essentially a chick flick with blood and guts.*
8. When somebody says, “They hunt by sound, we need to be quiet,” it means quit calling out each other’s names and grunting with exertion and stumbling into clattery things willy nilly and screaming every time you see something unpleasant, as these actions create the impression that you are a dumbass who wants to be found and gruesomely killed by cave mutants.
9. If you are in a “They hunt by sound, we need to be quiet” situation with a bunch of people lacking the stealth of the ninja, there is NOT safety in numbers.
10. I was going to say, in light of the fact that the one chick killing the other chick was AN ACCIDENT, crippling her within spitting distance of salvation and leaving her to be eaten by cave mutants was unbelievably bitchy.
11. But on second thought, the one chick in question deliberately put them all in that situation for her own ego trip, thus preemptively negating any “it was AN ACCIDENT” cred to which she may have been entitled, and I really wanted her to die from the second that little bit of information was revealed, so never mind.
12. Groups of women have always made me uneasy, and now I am more sure than ever it’s a good idea to maintain a safe internet distance from you people, lest you drag me into a cave, break my leg, ram a rock-climbing hatchet-thingy into my neck, and get me eaten by cave mutants.
*Kill Bill—of which we caught only the last half hour or so after the conclusion of The Descent, much to our chagrin—is a much better chick flick. Uma Thurman was made of kickass, dipped in vengeance, and armed with awesome. And, like all good chick flicks, that one had a happy ending.
May 12th, 2009 at 10:47 AM
LOL. I’ve never even heard of this movie, but I’ll be sure to avoid it. Although, it’s funny to watch really bad movies with people who enjoy participating in a running MST3000 commentary with me…
And I’ve never once left someone to die by a cave mutant. If I want someone dead, I do it myself, thank you very much.
May 12th, 2009 at 11:05 AM
THAT’S WHAT THEY ALL SAY.
Then they bury a rock-climbing hatchet-thingy in your knee and scurry to safety while cave mutants eat your face.
I hate that really bad movies are so unforgettable. Days later, I’m dwelling on the terrible SCIENCE involved.
A sufficient supply of dumb animals/humans isn’t going to fall into the hole in the ground to feed that huge colony of cave mutants, so they’d have to hunt outside the cave. If they have to be outside long enough to hunt, their adaptations wouldn’t include blindness and pasty skin. And why can’t they SMELL these women from 2 inches away even when they manage to be quiet for 2 seconds? They’ve been mucking around in a cave, and there’s only so much stink Secret can stave off. Most of them have blood on them. And when a face-eating cave mutant is 2 inches from your face, you are, at the very least, going to wet your pants. Explain the logic behind a lack of olfactory sense in cave mutants. Sheesh, this is SO unrealistic…
May 12th, 2009 at 1:16 PM
Oh, no! Haha, I really liked this movie (although, yeah, you’d never catch me anywhere near a hole in the ground, no matter how much equipment you gave me.)
I thought the movie worked fine without the mutants; it’s almost too bad they just didn’t go for a character piece — getting out of the cave — and watching them all unravel. Ah, well.
May 12th, 2009 at 2:52 PM
IMDB has a 7+ star rating for it, and it was nominated for/won a bunch of awards, so it might be the gold standard for excellence in horror movies for all I know. The horror movie genre and I have never gotten along. I usually end up rooting for the Big Bad because the Good Guys are inevitably TSTL.
“Let’s go investigate that scream that cut off suddenly, to be replaced by those wet munching sounds!”
Um… NO. Even if you want to be the helpful hero, by the time there’s wet muching, it’s too late.
May 12th, 2009 at 3:41 PM
Funniest horror movie I ever saw was 30 Days of Night. Paul and I laughed hysterically through the entire film (in the theater). Best part was the way the vampires talked to each other. You don’t need to see it to get the full effect. Simply open your mouth wide, inhale deeply and make sure that you shriek WHILE inhaling.
That’s it. Scary, yes? Oh, wait. Also, cock your head to the side like being dead somehow affected you ability to comprehend things on the first go-around.
I still do the vampire inhaling shriek to my friends now and then when someone needs to lighten the mood. It’s a real conversation starter.
May 12th, 2009 at 4:07 PM
That was another one wherein I was convinced the Good Guys wouldn’t have lasted 3 hours, much less 30 days.
Besides which, those were the most wasteful vampires I’ve ever seen. BUCKETS of blood left lying around everywhere. If you got to eat only one month of the year, would you be throwing the food on the floor? The 5-second rule shouldn’t apply to vampires. Get a straw and suck it up!