The Descent

2005

 

Directed by:  Neil Marshall

Written by:  Neil Marshall

Starring:  Shauna Macdonald, Natalie Jackson Mendoza and Alex Reid.

 

From IMDB:

"A caving expedition goes horribly wrong, as the explorers become trapped and ultimately pursued by a strange breed of predators."

 

 

 

It's nice to watch something shot with a budget that's higher than the cost of my first car.

Good talent and beautifully shot.  Hopefully they'll come up with some original twists and turns.  Be nice to avoid the "everyone dies but one" cliche.  I won't hold out hope.

Strong opening.  Nice set up with the tragedy and the foreshadowing of an affair between the husband and the friend.  That's no spoiler - only a moron would have missed it - not subtle and I see no reason for it to be.

 

This movie moves along nicely. 

 

And the penalty for stupidity is pain.  I love it!!

 

Lots of panic going on.  I imagine I'd be filling my drawers as well if I was being attacked by CHUDs!

 

So Beth is dying and her last act is to tell Sarah "Juno did this - and she was fucking your husband."

She left the part out about how it was an accident - and the husband is already dead.  So what's to be gained?  Bad karma I tell you - that's what!!

 

The final escape scene is so over the top music video it's virtually impossible to really see what the hell is going on but one does manage to follow it.

And Juno certainly didn't deserve her end but some might disagree.

So in the end no one survives - there's a bold new twist :( And it turns out our protagonist is a woman willing to send another woman to a horrible fate for essentially having an affair with her husband - of course there was Beth's little white sin of omission - so that is factor - but still, some chicken shit writing in an otherwise EXCELLENT film.

 

I'm giving it 4 Bloody Eyes out of 5.

 

 

Killers from Space

1954

Directed by: W. Lee Wilder

Written by: William Raynor, story by Myles Wilder

Starring: Peter Graves

From IMDB:

"A scientist monitoring atomic tests, killed in a plane crash, is revived by aliens so he can spy on the tests and help them conquer the world."

This clip is 4 minutes long.

The pilot's call sign is Tar Baby II - I'm pretty certain that wouldn't be acceptable in today's clinical world.

Peter Graves had a good career despite this mess.

This is great.  The aliens are guys in one piece suits and eyes created from ping pong balls cut in half.

They take 15 minutes to explain to our hero their plan for invading the earth.

Why they're explaining to him, hasn't been revealed yet.

Then he spends 5 minutes running from insects and lizards that have been enlarged - but he doesn't really run from them - it's more like he moves from creature to creature - stand and looks at the thing for a moment - runs his hands through his hair then carries on.  The creatures never attack - but I gather when the time is right the aliens plan to unleash the giant bugs on the population - thus paving the way for colonization.

Aaaauh - true freedom, a man wants to enjoy a nice smoke, he just lights one up, even if he's walking down a hospital corridor!

There's a chase scene inside a power plant - but they've only got a few sets so they just run by the same ones over and over again.

When I was 8 I wrote a story about an mad doctor who invents a machine that turns everything in the world ugly - yeah, I know, what's the motive?  I was 8, what do you want from me?  At any rate the doctor's plans were thwarted when Stephanie and Kevin unplug his machine.  It was a daring and brilliant move.  Perhaps I'd seen this movie and unintentionally borrowed from it - at any rate, that's about how it goes down.

This is a bad one but there's just not enough bad to make it good.

It get's 1 Bleeding Eye out of 5.