WARNING: DON’T READ IF YOU’VE NEVER SEEN THE FIRST DESCENT, OR IF YOU WANT TO KEEP DESCENT 2 A COMPLETE SURPRISE!
The main controversy with the first DESCENT was the ending. Fans of the film know that the flick has TWO different outcomes: There’s the intended one, where our “heroine” was left trapped underground and completely out of her f*cking skull… And then there’s the pussified American theatrical version, where Shauna MacDonald’s “Sarah” escapes.
News of a DESCENT 2 caused some skepticism. Which ending would the producers be going with? Turns out, it’s the pussified one.
First off, familiarize yourself with the new film’s synopsis: Sarah (MacDonald) emerges alone from a cave system following an expedition with her five friends in the Appalachian mountains. Distraught, injured and covered in the blood of her missing companions, Sarah is incoherent and half-wild with fear. Skeptical about her account of events and convinced Sarah’s psychosis hides far darker secrets, Sheriff Vaines forces her back into the caves with a search party to help locate the rest of the group. Trapped by falling rocks, the party gets driven deep into the caverns, and as one by one the fate of the missing girls is revealed, Sarah is forced to confront her deepest fears.
There’s a contingent of folks who believe the THE DESCENT is one of those “was it all in her head?” mindf*cks – and that Sarah was actually doing all of the killing (after all, she DOES leave her former friend Juno down there to die). I don’t like – or want to believe – this point of view; I WANT there to be acrobatic albino monsters in them caves! I can think of another movie that completely ruined itself with the very same twist ending (you know who you are). Most horror fans aren’t usually very keen on the “it was all a dream!” copout.
But with the synopsis above, it seems like there’s still room for the “Sarah is the villain” theory. Consider the news that ALL of the girls from the first flick are returning… Yes, MyAnna Buring (Sam), Alex Reid (Beth), Saskia Mulder (Rebecca) and Nora-Jane Noone (Holly) are joining the already announced Natalie Mendoza (Juno) and MacDonald, bringing us into “what the f*ck?” territory…
SLIGHT SPOILER for DESCENT 2…
I’ll let Buring explain, straight from an interview she did with Empire: “I don’t know if I’m supposed to tell you this, but we’ll all appear in flashbacks. We had that video camera in the first film, remember, so [it’s footage from that].
Hmm, what might that footage show? That revelation, combined with the sentence as one by one the fate of the missing girls is revealed, Sarah is forced to confront her deepest fears makes me think there’s more than meets the eye with these flicks…. Of course, I could be completely talking out of my butthole here, and the whole thing is just another creepy monster movie… But if it DOES do the twist at the end, don’t say you didn’t read it here first!