The two hardest film genres to pull off are comedy and horror. The latter has suffered in recent years due to an overflow of PG-13 "spooky" films, usually remakes of Japanese hits, aimed solely at bringing in teenage girls (and their male protectors).
Yet, these films usually disobey the golden rule of the horror genre - reveal your monstrosities slowly. "
Alien," for example, is an exemplary example of how to do horror; Ridley Scott gave us only glimpses of his creature, thus allowing the audience the chance to imagine something far worse than what the puppet/creature-suit turned out to be. Most modern horror films start killing off characters minutes into the movie, and what we end up with is a CGI freak fest devoid of any suspense or chilling atmosphere.
Not so with "
The Descent," the best horror film I've seen since, gosh, a long time. I will not reveal if there are or are not creatures in the film; that's beside the point. The point is that "
The Descent" gradually builds an atmosphere of claustrophobia, paranoia, and undeniable doom. It works on both a physical and psychological level, and it gives us characters that actually surprise us.
And thus, it comes as no surprise that "
The Descent" is not an American film. Leave it to foreigners - in this case, the British - to remind Hollywood how horror films are supposed to be made.
