The Descent: Part 2

Jon Harris says his routine sequel is a ‘seamless continuation’ of Neil Marshall’s heart-stopping ‘survival horror’ movie, in which six female friends were attacked in an Appalachian cave system by mutant, flesh-eating monsters. Traumatised, amnesiac survivor Sarah (Shauna Macdonald) is ordered back underground by a sceptical local sheriff and sets off with the lawman, his female deputy and a three-person rescue team. The first hint of what happened to the five missing women is glimpsed on a video camera’s playback; then the party is attacked by a new breed of ferocious Crawlers.

Simon Bowles’s subterranean sets and Sam McCurdy’s stygian cinematography create a suitably terrifying atmosphere, but ex-editor Harris’s direction is messy, favouring confusing set-piece scares over the all-important group dynamics. Also, the opportunistic resurrection of the (presumed) dead Juno (Natalie Mendoza) is lazy and insulting, and the abrupt, nihilistic ending is in no way earned.