Can’t a good thing be left alone? How about an even just OK thing that’s been overestimated? You know the answer.
Horror is so poor these days that even a decent flick from the genre becomes labeled as a modern classic. Such was the case with the 2005 British horror, “The Descent” by Neil Marshall, a mostly good, enjoyable horror that didn’t reinvent the wheel, but didn’t suck either.
But Lionsgate (and the genre itself) loves their sequels so “The Descent 2” has already been shot and is awaiting release (and tellingly and per usual, the original director has moved on and will only receive a producer credit). And we scratch our heads why because the international trailer for this sequel looks exactly the same as the first installment: a bunch of people go spelunking in a cave expedition and get attacked and eaten alive, by half-man/half-monster-like nocturnal creatures that like bats, see via sound radar.
Except this time they go down there on purpose to find out what happened (groundbreaking!) and we follow the one survivor from the original, Sarah (Shauna Macdonald) who is seemingly stupid enough to go back for more — yet another congenital consistent problem with horror and its typical conceits; we’re supposed to root for imbeciles that constantly make stupid choices — what would happen if there was such a film with a smart protagonist? Would nothing bad happen to them at all cause they avoided every retarded mistake the audience can spot a mile away (and is constantly yelling at the screen for the character to avoid)? This ‘dumb people, dumb mistakes’ vagary is inherent in the genre, but god, we’d love to see a modern film of this type that avoided those frustrating plot cliches (how about something like “Alien” where everyone on board does not insult the viewers intelligence).
Anyhow, if you want to see a rehash of a decent horror, with probably a revenge twist (Sarah will get even with these creatures, surely!), then “The Descent 2” is probably for you, but really, don’t you just expect/want a little bit more than this? According to the always unreliable Wikipedia, the film is set for a May 15 release in the U.K. Perhaps it will roll into U.S. theaters later this year. Trailer found over at Rope of Silicon.