The Descent 2

 

DIRECTED BY: Jon Harris

STARRING: Shauna Macdonald, Natalie Jackson Mendoza, Krysten Cummings, Gavan O’Herlihy

CERT: 18

Neil Marshall’s The Descent was a fine yarn, an enjoyably intense horror that was a surprise but deserved box office hit a few years back. This sequel doesn’t live up to that pedigree, but if you can somehow manage to get past the ridiculous stumbling block in the plot, then it’s still a decent and enjoyable chiller.
The original ended on a wonderfully bleak note, sole survivor Sarah (Macdonald) hopelessly trapped in the Apalachian caves where her female companions had met their grisly end at the hands of the crawling subterranean residents.
Part two picks up there, Sarah emerging from the caves, covered in the blood of her friends and so traumatised she can hardly speak. Or remember anything, for that matter. And the screenwriters aren’t the only ones who think that’s convenient. The authorities aren’t buying the diagnosis and Sarah is forced to accompany a rescue mission and go back down into the caves to find some proper answers.
As plot lines go, it’s almost up there with Pam dreaming up a whole series of Dallas while Bobby took a shower. And if that little development isn’t hard enough to swallow, it soon transpires that in fact, Sarah was not the only survivor – though her newly-resurrected friend wasn’t showing very many obvious signs of life the last time we saw her.
Not that the Crawlers are complaining, what with all the fresh produce on display. Naturally they dig in with relish – and it isn’t long before poor forgetful Sarah is remembering more than she’d like to.
Director Jon Harris doesn’t really bring anything new to the party here, pretty much retracing Neil Marshall’s footsteps in style and content as well as territory – even going so far as to borrow heavily from the original score.
He does throw in the odd grim surprise though – old Gavan O’Herlihy gets a particularly memorable send off and there’s an excellent viewfinder moment – and unlike many a sequel maker, Harris doesn’t feel the need to go down the tired old back story road.
His cast might have been better served by the script and the rescue team is not so much a bunch of characters as it is a handy mobile meal waiting to be dished up at appropriate moments. But Shauna Macdonald is game as ever, the Crawelrs are still ugly as sin and capable of a decent frightand the ending is a pleasant surprise.
No classic but no turkey either.

The Box

DIRECTED BY:

Richard Kelly

STARRING: Cameron Diaz, James Marsden, Frank Langella

CERT: 15A

Several years down the road and I’m still not entirely sold on the charms of Donnie Darko. And director Richard Kelly is still struggling to come up with another film that might affirm the reputation Donnie made for him.
Southland Tales in 2006 wasn’t it. And The Box is not it, either, though for at least half the running time, it is an intriguing watch.
Set in 1976 and based on the short story Button, Button by Richard Matheson (I Am Legend, A Stir Of Echoes), The Box follows the fortunes of Norma and Arthur Lewis (Diaz and Marsden), who are presented with a unique and terrible moral dilemma – an indecent proposal that doesn’t involve sleeping with anyone, except maybe the devil.
The Lewises are nicely well off but, when the slings and arrows of life hit them in the pocket, the financial situation gets a tad tight and they might not be able to send their darling son Walter (Sam Oz Stone) to the right school.
But a stranger with half a face offers them a way out. Arlington Steward (Langella) leaves a gift on their doorstep – a wooden box with a red button. He returns to tell Norma that if they press the button, two things will happen. She and her husband will receive one million dollars in cash and someone they don’t know will die.
It’s a fine little idea and, for as long as he’s following Matheson’s story, Kelly does a decent job with it. But when he goes off on his own mad tangents, it gets confused and messy. The scattered jumble of philosophy, religion and nosebleeds, ultimately becomes ludicrous.