The Descent: Part 2 (2009)

Tags

Anna Skellern, Documentary, Douglas Hodge, Drama, Gavan O'Herlihy, Horror, Josh Dallas, Krysten Cummings, Mark Hogancamp, Marwencol, Movie, Shauna Macdonald, The Descent: Part 2

shhhh! they're about to tell us why we're so well lit...

R

Shauna Macdonald, Krysten Cummings, Gavan O’Herlihy, Douglas Hodge, Josh Dallas, Anna Skellern

Sarah: They’re blind…they track sound.  You’re louder.

Sarah (Macdonald), the lone survivor of a caving expedition that was attacked by subterranean creatures, is forced to assist a rescue team search the cave for possible survivors.  This little rescue attempt does not go well.

Throw another one on the pile of unnecessary sequels.

This one is probably a touch better than most uncalled for sequels, but it still reeks of a lame attempt to cash in on the unexpected popularity of the first movie.  Sadly, the writers, and first time Director Jon Harris, didn’t quite understand what made the first movie an enjoyable horror flick.  That movie really gave itself time to develop the characters and create an ominous feeling of the cave closing in around them (and us the audience).  In an odd way – despite what happens to them – the first movie seemed to actually care about the characters.  Part 2 simply reduces them all to ambulatory bags of blood just waiting to be torn apart in creative ways.

The movie opens with one of the most stunningly unbelievable setups I’ve seen in a long time.  Sarah has just been discovered, she’s recovering from her ordeal in the hospital, she has her friends blood on her clothes, and somehow the policeman in charge decides it’s a good idea to drag her back down into the cave?  Don’t question her for more than 30 seconds, don’t do a full investigation or get a psychologist in to talk to her for a while.  Nope, just take the only survivor from the entire party back down in the cave.  Under no circumstances could I ever see this happening.  Ever.  At least when they pulled that stunt in Aliens, Ripley had told her story numerous times and a long time had passed before she went back into the monsters’ lair.

While Part 2 does manage to create some scary caving experiences (the scariest aspect of the first movie), it rushes to get to the monster attacks.  If you like extreme gore, I guess that will make you happy, because the attacks are pretty disgusting.  But it’s all so empty.  Just an exercise in violence and special effects.

I did say this was a touch above most bad sequels, and that’s mostly because of Shauna Macdonald.  She’s still an enjoyable actor to watch, and since she had a lot of character development in the first movie, she’s the only one I felt any connection to.  The caving sequences leading up to the monster attacks are good, and some of the action is alright.  Unfortunately, just when you think it might end on a good note, the movie totally falls off the deep end.  I really disliked the end of this one.  The first movie, depending on what version you saw, ended in a sort of poignantly depressing way.  This movie just left me feeling bad as the credits rolled.

One last thing to note.  The Descent was understandably guilty of having some of the caves lit with an unrealistic amount of light.  I mean, you have to if you want to see anything in a cave.  Part 2 goes overboard with the unrealistic lighting.  Way overboard.  You can see plain as day in some caves where there shouldn’t be a single light source.  Part of what’s scary about being in a cave is how dark it is.

Leave the 10K at home next time guys, okay?

Don’t fire a gun in a cave.

10 – 2 for lack of character development – 1 for a poor ending – 1 for some nonsensical things like well lit caves and blind monsters that hunt above ground all the time = 6.0

Marwencol (2010)

Tags

Documentary, Mark Hogancamp, Marwencol, Movie

apparently Quentin Tarantino is directing some of the action in Marwencol...

PG-13?

Mark Hogancamp

Mark:  I built Marwencol for me…for my therapy…and now it’s like everybody’s.  Like everybody wants to play in it or be part of it, and I don’t want all that.

After he was severely beaten by 5 men, a down on his luck alcoholic, Mark Hogancamp, couldn’t remember anything from his life before that day.  After relearning how to do basic tasks and to live on his own, he began to create a fantasy world that he could feel safe in by constructing a town called Marwencol and filling it with dolls that represent people he meets in his real life.

If Charlie Kaufman was God, these are the kinds of people and situations he would love to spend his days creating.  In fact, in Kaufman’s Synechdoche, New York, the main character, Caden, does do something a little bit like what Mark Hogancamp did in real life.  He creates a virtual world that represents his real life.  In both cases, the characters in the fantasy world usually go through exactly what the real life person had to suffer through.  It’s a form of therapy for Hogancamp, and he’s well aware of that.  In fact, by the end of the movie, his 1/6th size doll counterpart is constructing a miniature city of his own after having suffered a severe beating.  I’m not sure how much further that Matryoshka Doll-like scenario could be carried out by Hogancamp, but in Synechdoche, New York Caden just kept going and going with it until there was seemingly no longer any reality for him.  Hopefully Hogancamp won’t need to dive that deeply into his fantasy world.

As for the movie itself, it starts off fascinating and ends with some good emotional moments.  Only in the middle did it drag a bit for me.  The models that Hogancamp has built are amazing, but there’s only so many photos of them I can look at before it gets a little tedious.  Don’t get me wrong, it’s not torturous, it just wears a little thin.  I would have liked to see even more interviews with people that knew Mark before and after his memory loss.  The more I learned about him, the more interesting his fantasy world became.

And believe me, there is plenty to learn about him.  He may be a bit strange (borderline depraved at times), but by the end of the movie when he’s getting ready for his gallery show, you will almost definitely find yourself rooting for him to overcome his fears and start socializing with people who aren’t 8 inches tall and made of plastic.

Though, I gotta say, it does seem like most guys have pretty good luck with the ladies in Marwencol.  I might need to stop by there some day…

Amnesia can be an effective cure for alcoholism.

10 – 2.2 for being a bit dull/repetitive in the middle portion of the movie = 7.8