On the way back, Sarah asks Paul what is wrong with him, but he insists he's fine. This however distracts him as he fails to see the oncoming car carrying pipes on its roof. After crashing head on with it, the pipes pierce through the windshield, killing Paul and Jessica.

Sarah then sees her daughter slowly blowing out candles on a cake and awakens in a dim lighted hospital room. After going into the hallway, she panics when the lights shut off, light by light, down the hallway and she begins to run. When she's encompassed by darkness, she suddenly comes out of her drug induced hallucination and is instantly embraced by Beth sobbing, knowing what she's lost, Juno watching on in tears as well.

After showing the film's title, it shifts to one year later in the Appalachian Mountains in the USA. Sarah and Beth are driving to some cabins as Juno has put together a huge get together with them and some other old friends. Beth however doesn’t like this idea as Juno left rather quickly after the accident.

Once they arrive Beth welcomes both of them. Sarah then heads in to see old friends Sam and Rebecca along with new group friend Holly (all of which are Scottish). After looking at a photo of the old days, Sarah says her late husband's motto "Love Every Day".

Later that evening after drinking and having a good time (Holly insisting she's tired of tourist trap caves as they plan to go cave exploring), Sarah awakens in the night and looks out the window. A pole suddenly shoots through and stabs her in the head, only to have her awake from the nightmare. She later takes some medication, a possible reason for the nightmares.

The next morning after jogging, Juno awakens all the girls and has them get ready. Before leaving though, Holly has them all get together and sets up a camera and a timer. They then get a Black and White picture of themselves taken.

On the way to the site, the girls go in two cars, Sarah, Beth and Juno (Sarah driving fast as she starts to enjoy herself again) in one car and Sam, Rebecca and Holly in the other car (talking about items and new excitements). After reaching their destination, they all prepare to leave with the equipment, although Juno leaves the cave guide book behind.

Walking through the woods and to the site, they talk about what could happen in a cave and what dangers there are, both physically and mentally. On the way there, they pass a dead moose and wonder what could have killed it.

Once they reach the hole, they rope their way down and gaze around at there surroundings. Slowly, they start to crawl through passages and make there way into new caverns and watch in amazement at what they see, Holly recording it on her camera. While exploring, Sarah thinks she sees something, but lets it go.

The girls then break for lunch, enjoying themselves. While they eat, Juno tries talking to Sarah and apologizes for leaving her so soon in her time of grieving. She insists this whole thing is to get things the way they where, but Sarah keeps her distance. Sarah then goes exploring and finds the next passage for them to go through

Moving on, the girls go one by one through a tight crawl space, carefully getting through. Beth and Sarah are last. As she gets near the end, Sarah gets stuck and Beth has to turn around to help her.

As Sarah starts to panic, Beth reminds her that she's already been through the worst thing of her life and that this is nothing. She then helps her by telling her a joke and gets her to laugh. With Sarah relaxed, Beth gets her free.

However, when Sarah tries to get the Rope bag she dropped, the rocks above them start to loosen and come down. Both Sarah and Beth leave the bag and start to hurry on and get out before they're buried.

After escaping, Sarah goes un-conscious and has another dream of her daughter and the birthday cake. After awakening, the girls let the dust settle and regroup. They then ask Juno to look in the book and find the other exits. It's then that Juno gives up her secret: this isn't the cave she told them they where exploring, this cave isn't even known, and that she really wanted them to discover it on there own. After a heated argument, they start to move on.

As they continue, they stop as they reach an open cavern with a huge drop and gap between where they are and the continuing caves. Reluctantly, Rebecca grabs onto the ceiling and uses rope and climbing gear to make a safe way across. On the way over, she notices an older form of climbing gear still stuck in the top and uses it.

While the girls pass across the gap one by one, Juno mentions to Sarah that since this cavern system wasn't named, she wanted to name it after her, but Sarah continues to be distant. After all have passed, Juno slowly climbs the ceiling collects the rope and gear.

When she's almost to the other side, she looses grip and falls, the rope sliding through Rebecca's hands and slicing through her glove and into her palm. As Juno hangs, the older climbing rig breaks and Juno falls, but the girls manage to grab the rope and save her. After looking at the piece, Juno points out that there not the first to enter the cave, but that the older climbing gear is over 100 years old and whoever came down here most likely didn't come out.

As they continue, Beth notices on the wall what appear to be cave paintings similar to pre-civilization humans. She also notices something higher and has Juno reluctantly light another of her flairs. Looking up, the girls see a painting of a mountain and see below it 2 cave entrances. They then hurry on, unaware that something was alive in the room behind them.

Getting into frenzy, Holly goes ahead of the other girls and hurries with out them, seeing what she thinks is light and the exit, but Juno warns that it's not. As she sees that the light isn't the entrance, she slips and falls into a chute close by and lands hard, breaking the bone out of her leg.

Once caught up, the girls instantly start to help Holly get ready to move. Sarah meanwhile goes looking and finds an old miners hat. After looking around, she sees what she thinks is a manlike creature drinking water, but it instantly runs off when she makes a noise.

Back with the others, Juno and Beth insist that she was just seeing things in the dark. With a brace on Holly's leg, the girls then continue.

After climbing up a ledge, they come to a flat area that is scattered with animal bones. When Juno can't figure out a way out, the girls start to panic and call out for anyone. After turning on the Night vision on Holly's Camera, they start to look around.

As Beth heads back, Juno fights one over Holly's body, but is stopped when another attacks her from behind and the first one takes Holly away. After an enduring fight, Juno finally kills it with her climbing pick. As she hears something behind her, she turns and swings in a blood rage, but stabs Beth through her neck. She then falls to the ground, grabbing Juno's Pendant from her neck. Juno then leaves her to die.

Meanwhile, Sam and Rebecca reunite while Sarah falls down a chute and gets knocked out. After having a dream of seeing her daughter turned into one of the creatures, she awakens and uses the camera to see in the dark.

Staying silent, she watches in horror as the creatures take Holly's body and start to devour it. At the same time, Sam and Rebecca lie down and watch as one passes them by. All three realize that the creatures are completely blind and only respond to sound (Sarah nearly hurling catches their attention, but they don't attack when she becomes silent again). Juno then calls through the cave for the other girls, nearly getting her found.

While Sarah uses Holly's clothes and a bone to make a torch, Juno meets up with Sam and Rebecca, saving them from a creature attack. She tells them about Beth and Holly, but leaves out what part she played. She then tells them that she saw some drawn arrows on the wall and they then start to look for them, but Juno still insisting that they find Sarah first.

Meanwhile, Sarah slowly makes her way out of the bone yard, but suddenly finds Beth still alive there and gasping for life. When Sarah says she'll find the others, Beth warns that it was Juno who did this and shows the pendant she took. Sarah then reads the locket to find her husband's motto written on it.

Before she leaves though, Beth requests that Sarah due her a favor and end her life. At first, Sarah resist, but Beth insists. Finally, she takes a rock and smashes her, ending her pain.

Her mourning however is ended quickly when a child creature jumps her from behind and attacks her. Sarah manages to kill it quickly, but then sees its mother come up and check on its child. Seeing it dead, the mother goes into a rage and charges Sarah who flees. While running, she falls into a deep pool of water, stained blood red.

Slowly, she emerges, hoping to escape, but fails as the mother attacks her in the water. Desperately, she manages to catch a sharp edged bone and kills the mother. As she leaves the pool, she hears another creature coming (most likely the mother's mate) and plays dead. As it passes her, she kills it with a large blunted bone. Them holding her new weapon and torch, she screams in rage.

Higher up in the cave, Juno, Sam and Rebecca hear her and think its more creatures. As they move on quickly, Juno turns to see that the creatures are on to them and they hurry on. Getting ahead, Rebecca again comes to the cavern where she had to climb the ceiling.

Not wasting time, she quickly starts to climb across and set up the rigging again. However, due to her wounded hand, it's harder then before. When Juno and Sam get there, they insist she come back. When she looks over, she sees a creature, upside down on the ceiling, charge her. With a knife, she manages to stab it and make it fall down below, but not before it rips out her throat and leaves her hanging by the rope dead.

While watching in horror, a creature comes in behind them and pulls Sam down. Juno tries to pull her back up, but watches as the creature start to bite through her clothing and eat into her stomach while she's alive. Seeing more coming, she takes a risk and jumps off into the darkness below.

Landing deep in water, she finds the creature Rebecca had fought which wasn't actually dead and it attacks her underwater. Pulling out the knife she used, she kills the creature for good.

Slowly, Juno starts to climb up the wall, but struggles. When she nearly falls, she's pulled into a hole in the wall and is saved by Sarah. Inside, Sara questions Juno about the others, Juno again leaving out her involvement in Beth's death.

As they make there way back to the cave entrance they came in at, they are cut off by a group of creatures waiting for them. Juno armed with her pick and Sarah armed with the blunt bone, the then start a viscous battle with the creatures. After being disarmed, the girls kill most of the creatures brutally with there bare hands.

After regrouping, Sarah grabs Juno's pick and confronts her. Showing the pendant she dropped, Juno relies that Sarah knows what happened with Beth. When she looks off to hear more creatures coming, Sarah readies her aim and stabs Juno through her leg, Juno seeing it but not doing anything to stop it.

Being left, Juno pulls the pick out and readies her stance, wanting to go down fighting as the creatures charge at her. Sarah meanwhile takes her torch and heads on, hoping to find the exit. In a hurry, she fails to see the opening the in the floor and falls through it, landing in another bone yard.

When she awakens, she sees a light up ahead. Seeing that the sunlight is from an actual exit, Sarah quickly climbs a steep mountain of bones and heads for the light. Once at the top, she breaks through branches and shrubs and escapes back into the forest, not far from the hole they entered from.

Quickly, she runs back to the vehicles, in hysterics from finally being free from the nightmare below in the caves. Getting in, she drives away as fast as she can, still screaming as she drives.

Back at the main road, Sarah parks on the side of the road and starts to cry at the wheel. After being scared by a honking log truck passing, she opens the window to throw up. When she looks back into the car, she sees Juno, dead and bloody and screams.

Waking up, she relies that it was another dream. Looking over, she sees she's still in the bone yard. However, she sees her daughter again with the birthday cake. Smiling, she's unaware of the creatures slowly heading her way.

The final image as the credit's role is of the picture the girls had taken earlier, showing their last few moments of happiness and fun before their descent into hell.

Fun Facts

If you're wondering why there's the underlined part at the end of the review, it's because that part of the film was not in the American cut. The distributors felt that the film would already drain the audience enough with all they went through, and the idea that she still wasn't out of danger they felt was too much.

Originally, the film was meant to be multi-gendered main cast, but director Neil Marshall and his partner saw that few horror films hardly ever had any all female casts and decided to defy how it commonly was done. Needless to say, this worked.

Although not given a name in the film, the creatures at the end of the credits are called Crawlers. Also, the extent of there evolution isn't explained; although, it is heavily hinted that they're humans who evolved down below to not need site and survive on sound waves like a bat.

This film had competition as well, as a similar American made film was made called "The Cave" which had a similar story, only with more inhuman monsters. It wasn't nearly as successful and was often called "Pitch Black Underground" as it had a similar plot to that film and it had Cole Hauser playing a similar role to what he played in Pitch Black.

After this film's success, they have started a sequel called The Descent 2. It will be out this year. Both Sarah and Juno will return for it, as Juno was never shown dieing in the first film. The film will show Sarah escaping but being questioned by local authorities as to how and why, thinking her medication made her do whatever happened. When Sarah, the Sheriff and a few others use the old mining rigs to go down, they truly start to discover what went on. It is unknown by the trailer as to which ending the sequel will fallow from.

Recommended for ages 12+

I think it's pretty obvious that this film would gain the highest rating I have to offer. First off is the language as the swear words in this film are high and in abundance. Second is the blood factor, since there is, while not on the level of Saw or Hostel, a fair amount of crimson in this film, both from the creatures and the victims, the one in particular for me is Holly's broken bone sticking out of her leg. *shudder*

One other factor for this film is what I like to call Human Reminders. People, I feel, tend to forget that they're part of Nature and Nature revolves around the food chain. We take for granted that we eat plants and animals that were once alive; films like this I feel remind us that we are not free from that going in reverse, something feeding on us.

That dark theme combined with the blood, language and a few good jumps is why I chose the rating. I advice to not deviate at all from it, even the clean TV version I bet will still have some scary jumps and some fair gore. I also would advice, since this is my first 12+ rating, that the parents just to be safe watch this before letting there kids watch.

That's it for this issue. Next time, we'll be taking Arachnophobia and expanding it... about a 100 feet tall. Till then, fare thee well.