Because horror movies have effectively been told in a number of ways, it's difficult to determine exactly which elements are needed in order for them to be good. I began thinking about this after seeing "The Descent," a high-tension roller coaster ride that left me more puzzled than exhilarated. This was an incredibly unstable film, lost within a maze of unfinished ideas. It reminded me of a misguided three-act play, each act characterized by wild shifts in storytelling methods. Yes, certain parts worked in and of themselves, but when put together, it turned into a chaotic, messy film.

The first act is grounded in humanity (and I mean that in more ways than one), focusing solely on the interactions between six female rock-climbing enthusiasts. Sarah (Shauna Macdonald), Juno (Natalie Mendoza), Beth (Alex Reid), Rebecca (Saskia Mulder), Sam (MyAnna Buring), and Holly (Nora-Jane Noone) gather in a remote area of the Appalachian Mountains one year after Sarah lost her husband and daughter in a car crash. While she's understandably still upset over the whole incident, she's willing to rejoin the group and have a little adventure.

The second act is the psychological portion of the story. While Juno's personality isn't fully developed, it can safely be assumed that she's the more reckless, ego-driven one. At one point she says something to the effect of, "If there's no risk, why bother?" This is apparently the motto she lives by, and because of that, she convinces the others that they should all explore a network of tourist-friendly caves hidden deep beneath the mountains. What she neglects to tell them is that they're actually going into an unexplored area, one she hopes they can claim as their own. Once they enter, they quickly learn that they're in a very unpredictable environment; they encounter pitch darkness, deep pits, unstable ledges, and narrow passages that could collapse at any moment. All of these scenes are tense, bringing on bursts of panic, blame, and uncertainty. For a while, it becomes a matter of pulling themselves together if there's to be any hope of escape.

It then becomes a matter of survival at any cost. That's because the third act begins, and it turns the film into a gory creature feature by introducing a pack of slimy, humanoid predators with carnivorous appetites. At this point, all traces of plot cohesion are lost; it would have been just as effective if the three acts were expanded, separated into their own stories, and released as individual films. I say this because each act was completely different in genre, tone, and style. By the time the creatures are brought into the story, crucial details suddenly become irrelevant. The biggest one concerns Sarah's daughter, Jessica (Molly Kayll). The audience is initially shown quite a few haunting visions that plague Sarah on a regular basis (such as birthday cakes and an impaled windshield). But they dwindle in frequency during the second act, and by the third act, they're completely gone.

I guess the car crash and Jessica's death weren't as important as the filmmakers led us to believe they were. If anything, they were nothing more than filler material, meant to kill time before getting to the good parts of the story, the ones with scary creatures. It was as if the filmmakers were saying, "Who cares about that old subplot? We now have monsters and blood to keep them entertained." But if they wanted monsters and blood so badly, they probably should have created something that could support those elements for the entire film. It might not have been as compelling a story, but at least then we wouldn't have to waste our time investing in characters we didn't need to invest in.

And then there's the ending, which left me unfairly baffled. I obviously can't describe it in detail, but I'll say this much: one of the characters makes a particularly drastic decision. It was a decision I didn't feel she needed to make; it was not only an unnecessary thing to do, it was also an amoral one. The scene was over the top in a bad way, making one feel as cheated as if they had been watching an anticlimactic plot twist. It would be wrong of me to say that I expected something more inspiring, but I definitely expected something more appropriate. It probably would have been a good thing to re-shoot the ending, even if the rest of the film's incompatible elements were left alone.

Based on this assessment, it would seem that one of the necessary components for a good horror movie is consistency. "The Descent" can't decide what kind of film it wants to be, and that made it an especially mind-numbing experience. This isn't to say that it doesn't have its good points; it actually has quite a few of them, especially during the last half of the movie. Most of those scenes are hidden in shadow, leaving much of the imagery left to the audience's imagination. That's certainly an effective way of delivering scares; what's not seen is always more frightening than what is seen. I just wish it had been a cohesive journey, one that didn't rely on unnecessary shifts in plot and structure.

It's a mystery why ads for "The Descent" included comparisons to Ridley Scott's "Alien." They're only fair to the smallest degree: in both movies, small groups of people are trapped in a confined area and stalked by an otherworldly being. They also both have that sense of panic and desperation about them, conveying the confusion and fear the characters are going through. But "Alien" was a much more carefully crafted film, it's intent never wavering, it's story consistently terrifying. "The Descent" only has moments of effectiveness, ones that unfortunately don't add up to very much. I give it credit for trying, though; the idea behind it was definitely a good one. It just needed to be in the hands of a more focused writer/director.

- Chris Pandolfi

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