Last night I watched The Descent, a British horror film released in 2005. At the time it was released, it got great reviews, but I never got a chance to see it. Still, it stuck in my head, an entry in the jumbled, teetering mental mass that is “movies I should watch someday”. As a side note, I’ve been working on converting this sketchy mental accounting into a more reliable, computer-based process. If you haven’t seen the movie and don’t want to see spoilers, stop reading now.

The movie was great, and genuinely scary. There were two shots in particular that were extremely well-done, variations on the usual “monster out of nowhere” shots that are commonplace in horror films. First, in case you didn’t know, the Descent involves a group of cavers exploring a supposedly uncharted cave system. Like Alien, this means the movie builds in an extremely creepy environment by its basic premise. Anytime your horror movie plot can reasonably put your characters into dark, enclosed spaces filled with creepy background noises, half your work is done (see also the excellently atmospheric Session 9). As with many horror movies, the most frightening moments are when the monsters are half-glimpsed or otherwise implied, letting your mind fill in the gaps; the movie becomes less scary when the monsters are established and allowed to fully appear on-screen.

Secondly, since the environment the characters are in is so dark, several shots are done through the point of view of an infrared camera; the greenish tinge and property of this light that makes people’s pupils illuminate just adds something to the shot, an extra layer of creepiness. The first time you see a monster on camera is very far away, partially illuminated by a caver’s headlamp, really only glimpsed rather than seen. Totally creepy. The second, and the first full reveal of one of the monsters, is an unanticipated appearance through one of these infrared camera shots. This shot was excellent, a nice slow reveal, and very well framed. I jumped. Best horror movie shot I’ve seen in ages.

From there, the movie maintains good pacing and thrills, although most of the initial fear is gone; we, and the characters, know what they’re up against, and the known is almost always scarier than the unknown in horror movies. Still, it beats the pants off the last few horror movies I’ve seen, and is certainly worth any horror fan’s rental.

I do have a few criticisms. First, some of the other camera work takes a hint from 28 Weeks Later: guys, editing your action scenes so that there is a cut every second is good in small doses. Yes, it helps convey the terrified, frantic feeling the characters must be experiencing fighting cave monsters. But when you start to use it for every action scene, it gets confusing and honestly tiring to follow. I see this in more and more movies and it’s just not a good idea. Camera tricks exist to imply this kind of action without causing epileptic seizures in your viewing audience.

Secondly, the psychological backstory. It seems like so many horror movies these days want to provide depth to their characters by giving them some sort of traumatic past event, and the Descent is no exception. Mostly, it really adds nothing to the film, and doesn’t make me care about the characters more. I don’t really want to care about the characters. I want to see them die in various monster-themed ways, preferably with the stupidest characters going first.

I will say that in the Descent the whole backstory thing does add a little bit of flavor to the ending, perhaps even changing how you’re supposed to interpret it entirely. But still, it doesn’t really add a lot - except for about 40 minutes of screen time.