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2000s Horror

The Descent

1h 38m

Directed by Neil Marshall • 2005 • United Kingdom
Starring Shauna Macdonald, Natalie Mendoza, Alex Reid

Brilliantly exploiting our innate fears of the dark and the unknown to maximum nerve-shredding effect, this intense journey into the void is among the most frightening horror films of the twenty-first century thus far. One year after losing her husband and daughter in a car crash, grief-stricken Sarah (Shauna Macdonald) joins five women friends for an Appalachian caving expedition. But their adventure trip soon turns into a harrowing fight for survival when they find themselves lost and trapped in a subterranean world where they are not alone. Through masterful use of camera work, lighting, and production design, director Neil Marshall creates a tour de force of claustrophobic dread that keeps the terror steadily mounting.

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