Benjamin's Stash: Video Pick of the Week

      Hello, readers. This segment's coming a day late. I was busy, and since the editor-in-chief - which is me - gave the okay, it's coming today this week. So, this week's pick a bit came out almost ten years ago and caught me by surprise.

      It's a good thing I was born C-section, 'cause it'd be freaky if childbirth's similar to that for the baby. In The Descent, a group of friends - Sarah (Shauna MacDonald), Juno (Natalie Mendoza), Beth (Alex Reid), Sam (MyAnna Burning), Rebecca (Saskia Mulder), and the punky Holly (Nora-Jane Noone) - reunite for a vacation getaway in the Appalachian Mountains. While on a spelunking expedition, things take a turn for the worse after a rock fall leaves them stranded in an uncharted cave with no map and only a handful of supplies to last them the rest of the trip.

      I remember when this first came out. I was 20 and the theater nearby was playing it, there was nothing else good playing and Roger Ebert's site gave it four stars. That's all I knew about it going in. Knowing very little only made the film all the more exciting as it sucker punched the hell out of me from beginning to end. The film is only 99 minutes and for the first 30-40 minutes we don't even have the girls put into their dangerous situation yet. Writer/director Neil Marshall wisely spends almost the first half of the film developing these characters and their relationships, so that by the time the shit does hit the fan you actually care about what is happening to these women. That's the mark of a great horror film. Actually, that's the mark of any great film. The cinematography by Sam McCurdy has a dark, empty and claustrophobic feel that fits in with the film's tone splendidly, the pacing is just right, considering these women are the outdoors type (spelunking and whitewater rafting), the story, for the most part, is plausible and the performances - for a group of unknown actresses, for me, at the time - are very well done. It's been 8 years now since this film was released, so chances are you know what happens. Either way, I'm not gonna reveal anything about what happens other than what I need to tell you to convince you to see this. Watch this film knowing very little of what's to come and you'll find yourselves just as much in the dark as the characters within the film are. It's a much more satisfying first watch that way.