The Descent

So far so Dog Soldiers. But there the similarity ends. While Newcastle-born director Neil Marshall's 2002 werewolf horror mixed the gore with laughs, his long-awaited follow up is a much more serious - and much more chilling - affair.

This time the six are women, united by their love of adventure holidays. A year after suffering terrible tragedy, Sarah (Shauna Macdonald) joins her friends for a caving expedition in the Appalachian Mountains.

Team leader Juno (Natalie Mendoza) decides the beaten track is too tame, and instead leads them into a previously unknown cave system.

But there appears to be something down there with them. And they are very hungry. A group cornered by a largely unseen foe is a horror staple, but by locating the action in a cave, Marshall throws in the additional elements of claustrophobia, fear of heights, and terror of the dark, and uses them to maximum effect.

And while Dog Soldiers explored camaraderie under fire, The Descent sees the women turn on each other, as deeply-buried secrets come to the surface with power almost as destructive as their common enemy.

The group's characters may be lightly drawn, but the dynamic between the women is as important as their battle for survival. These are no Lara Croft-types, running around in skimpy hotpants, and to survive they have to make their own descent, to beasts every bit as primal and as savage as the monsters which scent their blood.

It's almost an hour before the creatures make their full and bloody entrance, an hour Marshall uses to ratchet up the tension, sometimes delicately, flickering shadows or half-heard giggles, sometimes brutally, with crashing music and bats flying out of hidden crannies.

And when they do make their appearance, the Crawlers don't disappoint. A backstory of a race of cavemen who never left their subterranean world, their evolution to living in the dark has given them a heightened hearing but rendered their vision useless, traits which are effectively realised through convincing prosthetics and a refreshing lack of CGI.

There is the question of why they avoid daylight when they are completely blind, but minor quibbles aside they are convincing and all the more disturbing for it. Pretty soon, it's bloody mayhem, as jugulars are ripped, eyeballs gouged and heads caved in, as Marshall ladles on the gore but adds some genuinely horrifying moments, as opposed to just horrible, which will see your jaw hit the floor. It's a superbly realised thriller, which evens out the kinks of Dog Soldiers and revitalises the genre.

Only the final scene disappoints, as an attempted ambiguity is simply irritating, but it is still a powerful and gripping chiller, which puts British horror films firmly on the map.

Published: 07/07/2005