‘THE DESCENT’ INTO HORROR

Apple Bilodeaux

The Advocate

If you like cramped spaces, and especially if you don’t, the 2005 horror film “The Descent” might be just the adrenaline rush you need to get your heart rate up.

It follows a group of young adult women who go caving, although two of them, Juno and Sarah, are struggling to repair their friendship.

It all starts with the group hiking into the Appalachian Mountains to explore a cave system. Soon after entering the women get trapped due to an area of the cave collapsing. While desperately looking for an alternate exit, they discover they are not alone. The cave system is crawling with flesh-eating, cannibalistic creatures that are constantly hunting the group.

Fortunately for the women, the creatures are blind and hunt using sounds, making survival somewhat possible.

Along the way we learn that Sarah once had a husband and daughter, who were killed in a car accident. Juno, one of Sarah’s best friends, had been sleeping with Sarah’s husband prior to the accident. This caused a big rift in their friendship because after the accident Juno moved away and wasn’t there to support Sarah. In an attempt to mend their friendship, Juno planned a “girls trip” to discover a new cave system and name it after Sarah.

The Descent is an underrated horror film for its time. The way the lighting is used really helps create a terrifying atmosphere. (Unfortunately the lighting wasn’t used as well in a sequel, “The Descent 2,” which truthfully is just not scary.) There are also a in caves. What’s more, the sequel developed by Endnight Games, “Sons of the Forest,” was recently released, in February. Both games are absolutely terrifying, just like “The Descent.”] As most horror movies go there’s at least one character who is incredibly stupid and gets themself, and potentially their friends, killed. In most cases it’s a woman portrayed as the stupid one, but in this movie all the characters are women. Still, I find it pretty dumb that even after discovering the creatures are blind and hunt using sound, a few of them are still yelling for each other through the caves. the artists are trying to convey. few times this movie plays off claustrophobia, since to be stuck between rocks as the cave starts collapsing is really gut-wrenching.

The overall mission of the Visual Arts Gallery is to create a welcoming center for artists of all genres to raise student, staff and public consciousness about the value of art in our community. Mt. Hood’s showcase is particularly welcome in East Multnomah County, where galleries are more scarce.

The Visual Arts Gallery is open to all, free of charge, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. weekdays. Next up, following the Faculty Arts Exhibit, will be the (local) High School Arts Exhibition expected to open on April 13.

[As a side note for my fellow gamers, the movie is quite similar to the game “The Forest,” a PC game released in 2014 as a horror survival game. The stories are completely unrelated, but the horror aspect shares many similarities: It’s essentially exactly the same, regarding cannibals living

Some in the group lose their flashlights in the initial attack, as well as splitting up from each other. Sarah is forced to light a torch, which really adds to the suspense since the lighting is so dark. At one point one of them uses a camcorder to see in the dark. With such a small line of sight, it made me extremely anxious not knowing whether there was a monster lurking just out of view. The lighting creates a truly terrifying atmosphere for the audience that makes this a Top-three horror movie, in my opinion.

I went into watching this movie not knowing anything about it, which added so much suspense and tension. Having been caving myself makes it even more terrifying. The thought of being trapped in an uncharted cave with so few supplies sounds like hell. I kept thinking as I watched, what would I do in this situation? I decided at first that I would probably just scream so the cannibals would kill me – although this plan got crapped on because

I found out the cannibals don’t always quickly kill their victims: They can just eat the person’s guts and leave them dying there in agony. That would totally suck.