SCREAM AND STREAM AGAIN: THE DESCENT: PART 2 (2010) ***

(Streamed via Pluto TV)

Sarah (Shauna Macdonald) barely escapes battling slimy cave monsters with her life.  After a brief rest in the hospital, the sheriff (Gavan O’Herlihy from Superman 3 and Death Wish 3) demands to know where her friends are.  Since her memory is a little screwy, and she doesn’t remember the first movie very well (who could blame her?) she stupidly agrees to lead the police and a small rescue team back into the caves.  It’s only until they’ve walked around the caves for half the running time does she realize, “Oh shit, that’s right!  There are monsters down here!” before all hell breaks loose… again.

This movie has balls, I’ll give it that.  Hollywood usually spends a lot of time and money trying to think up ways to make the characters do all the things they did in the original once again for the sequel.  This time out, they just have the character have some half-assed form of amnesia, so she doesn’t remember tangoing with the bat monsters from the first flick.  You have to give the filmmakers credit for making the lead character as stupid as they think the audience is.

Thankfully, I must be rock stupid because I liked this one a lot more than the (wildly) overpraised original.

First off, let me just say it was wonderful seeing Gavan O’Herlihy in a sizable role again.  He’s a lot older and greyer than the last time I saw him.  In fact, he REALLY looks like his old man, Dan now.

Macdonald doesn’t leave much of an impression though.  She really didn’t make much of an impression in the first movie to be completely honest.  In fact, I had to look on IMDb to make sure they didn’t just find another actress to play her part.

Mostly, this is another one of those People with Flashlights Walking Down a Long Hallway and Looking for Other People movie, except the hallway in question is a series of unending caves and some of the people have flashlights attached to their helmets.  Other than that, it’s the same old shit as the first movie, except with way less women.

The good news is, as far as these things go, it’s technically competent.  It’s also gory as fuck.  Among the juicy tidbits:  Finger biting, head crushing, and brain drilling.  You just have to admire any director who gives us multiple monster attack scenes where the humans kill the monsters by jabbing them in the throat or face and blood and ooze erupts from the wound and cascades into the would-be victim’s screaming mouth. 

The director, Jon Harris, also edited the original Descent, by the way.  It’s a shame he hasn’t sat in the director’s chair since because he delivered a number of memorable sequences.  There’s a nasty scene where the search party stumbles over a rotting fileted corpse that suddenly begins moving unexpectedly.  I also dug the scene in which some rescue workers had to swing on a corpse like Tarzan in order to get to safety.  Probably the best part though is when a few characters find themselves in the creatures’ toilet, complete with a shot of the monster taking a shit.  You don’t see that every day.