Lousy Lottery #18: Get Deep with The Descent 2
Welcome, friends, to the Lousy Lottery! Here’s how it works. First, I post four movies to a poll on Twitter. Fans vote to pick which movie to make me watch that week. I watch it, review it and spread the word about an amazingly awful, terribly terrific b-horror flick.
This is week 18! Your pick for this week has me digging deep, way way down to 2009’s The Descent 2! This movie is a creature feature that shape-shifts into a slasher. We’ll talk more about that in a moment, but, for now, let’s talk plot.
If you haven’t seen the original, The Descent, allow me to briefly recap. A group of six friends decide to be the first to map a series of subterranean caves. Once down there, though, they find themselves lost and unable to get out. But, wait, there’s more! They also find that the miners who originally built the series of tunnels and caves are still down there, evolved into horrifying, inbred mutants. Now the group of ladies has to survive not only the caves, but the cave dwellers! Like any good horror movie, only one, Sarah, makes it out. This is where the sequel picks up.
Cut to our final girl stopping a truck for help and fade to the hospital. Police want to know what the hell happened, but, shocker, Sarah doesn’t remember anything. That’s okay, trauma does that to people. The officers decide they’ll help jog her memory by sending her back down into the very hole she just crawled out of. Nothing says smart like taking someone recently traumatized and putting them right back into the situation that traumatized them. What could go wrong?! We get the answer to that question once they’re down there and Sarah remembers that, oh shit, there are monsters down here, I forgot, my bad. A monster helps her remember by ripping the lead search and rescue dude’s neck open.
Now it all comes flooding back and Sarah realizes she’s got to get the hell out of there one more time. So, does she turn to the experienced climbers and rescuers and say, ‘hey, we gotta get out of here, there are killers down here?’ No, she does not. She decides instead to punch the people nearest to her and fucking run for it. After she ditches the only help she has, the group makes a rookie horror mistake and decides to split up to find her. Oh honey, y’all dead. Sure enough, one by one they meet a grizzly demise. Will anyone survive? Will Sarah be a final girl one final time?
This movie is so full of frustrating storytelling decisions. Perhaps none is larger or more infuriating than the fact alone that they had her join the search and rescue/recovery of her friends just a day or so after the horrible series of events in the first film. This is totally nonsensical. Why in the world would they bring her? I have a friend who works for the county doing search and rescue/recovery. His specialization is recovering bodies from caves inside the various volcanoes that surround the greater Portland area. I’ve actually joined him on one of these caving missions. He chooses a team specifically for each case and does training dry runs and plans it out. It’s all incredibly professional and thought out. My point is, it’s totally insane that they’d be like, yeah, bring the victim and a couple of cops with no experience. Sure. Let’s do this. I mean, why? What value would they offer?
There’s far more than this, though. For example, one of the officers has to inform Sarah, who has lost all memory, that her daughter is dead. Then just a few minutes later the officer decides to take a personal call with her own daughter while sitting right next to Sarah. So, minutes after informing this woman that her daughter is dead, here’s the same cop talking on the phone with a small daughter being all “hey sweetie, I miss you too, can’t wait to see you.” I mean, what the hell?
There are many other head scratching examples, but the last I’ll mention is a twist related to the ending. So, SPOILERS, BEWARE, at the end we learn that there is an opening to the upper level and that the creatures down below have been using it to hunt and bring food back down. So, wait, let me get this straight, these miners who have been so trapped below ground that they’ve somehow evolved in just a few decades into Barbie-genitaled, bloodthirsty monsters have had access to the outside world the whole goddamn time?! That sorta pops the bubble of the entire premise of the series!
As I watched this movie and got more and more frustrated by all these bizarre story decisions, I had an epiphany and it changed everything. If you squint and pretend this movie is an ‘80s slasher, it suddenly becomes fun! I know you all are fans of cheesy ‘80s slashers and so I know you know full well that the name of the game is to sit back, not worry about plot holes and enjoy the gory fun. There was a moment in this movie where I realized, holy guacamole, this movie is an ‘80s slasher. The monsters are the deranged killer and the search and rescue folks are like teens at the (insert mall, school, graveyard, etc).
Once I saw things that way, I really enjoyed this movie! It became one fun set up for a gory punchline after another. I’m going to spoil things here and let you know that literally everyone dies. I loved that! By killing everyone, the filmmakers were letting the viewer know, hey, sit back, relax and enjoy the kills. No one cares why or how Kevin Bacon got into a situation that ended with an arrow through the neck in Friday the 13th or why someone was killed by bees while taking a dump in Sleepaway Camp. They ‘why’ question isn’t as important as the ‘how will the monster kill him/her’ question. Armed with that attitude, this movie became super fun. Ooh, squished by a rock! Damn, he got a flare to the eye!
In short, this movie is a blast of gory practical effects. On top of that, the filmmakers did a fantastic job of using the claustrophobic setting to squirmy results. There were times when this movie used tight spaces and water and smothering things of that nature to make me truly uncomfortable. The filmmakers used 30 different sets, storyboarding, and detailed miniatures to create a realistic underground maze of horrors. The tension of these moments were relieved by humor and solid kills, both of humans and monster humans. The end result is a campy, ‘80s style slasher of a creature feature and, damn, if that sentence doesn’t have you interested then this just isn’t your kind of movie.
Also, don’t forget to see what’s coming next in the Lousy Lottery. Make sure you tune into Twitter later today and vote for Lousy Lottery 19! My handle is @MrJosh79, look for it and don’t forget to vote!
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