The Descent Part 2

Product Description Dazed, bloodied and speechless with trauma, Sarah Carter emerges alone from the Appalachian cave system where the events of THE DESCENT took place. Local sheriff Redmond Vaines forces her back underground to help the rescue team which is desperately searching for her five missing girlfriends. As the team moves deeper into the caves, Sarahs flashes of fractured memory intensify and she begins to realize the full horror of the would-be rescue mission. Only Sarah knows the terror which lurks in the shadows of the caves. But they are about to encounter a new tribe of crawlers inbred, deformed and even more viciously feral than those Sarah faced before. Amazon.com As a follow-up to The Descent, Neil ( Doomsday) Marshall's unsettling and underrated subterranean horror film, The Descent: Part 2 delivers part, if not all of what made the first film one of the standout genre pictures of the last few years. Shauna Macdonald returns as the sole survivor of an expedition that turned fatal after its team of all-female spelunkers encountered a race of monsters in a remote Appalachian cave; unable to prove her story, she's sent by the local authorities back into the cavern with a team of experts, with predictably bloody results. Unfortunately, blood is apparently the sole focus of director Jon Harris, who edited the original Descent (as well as Kick-Ass); what's missing are Marshall's strong characters, which made their demise all the more meaningful and harrowing, and his emphasis on suspense over special effects (Marshall is credited as executive producer on Descent 2). Those wishing to see more of the "crawlers," the blind, humanoid antagonists in both films, will get plenty of views here, but bringing them into the light, as it were, doesn't make them more frightening. Instead, viewers become more aware of their artifice, which also goes for their suspiciously papier-mâché-like environs. The widescreen DVD includes some interesting extras that illustrate the producers' intentions with the film; Harris, Macdonald, and two of the newer cast members provide a lively commentary, while a 25-minute making-of featurette gives glimpses of the film's production design. A battery of deleted scenes offer character nuances that might have benefited the film had they been left in, and a storyboard gallery is an improvement over the murky sets. --Paul Gaita