No film in the history of this website has wrought more word heat than Neil Marshall’s THE DESCENT.  Not even the scourge that was PROM NIGHT 2K8 comes close to how much hate I’ve poured unto the cave bound invalid.  Yet for some reason, this film, a film I’ve called on good days a “headache” and on bad days “soul crushing“, has become my white whale.  When the moons of Big Red align just right, a resistor some where deep in the logic circurity of my pink 3 lbs slips a few ohms and I think to mahself, “I should give THE DESCENT another try…” There is often a backup resistor, a vanguard in me of perpetual grudge to remind cognitive Pete that THE DESCENT is a cruel experience, but that trooper has to sleep too and thus nights like this find purchase.

It has been three years since I first took in THE DESCENT.  Tonight marked either the 4th or 5th instance since and I hope for my own self esteem it was the former.  Yet no matter how many calendars rise and fall between cursings, I just cannot see what other people see.  Those people, be they personal pals like Beau who loved it or Internet strangers like Weinberg who swear by it, are people whose opinions on film I typically trust implicitly.  Yet, I remain on a different page, blind and unreceptive to the mojo at large.

I must admit, tonight was the closest I’ve come to enjoying the flick.  The Blu-ray transfer of THE DESCENT is crystal and the uncompressed sound mix deserves the finest seal of approval I can offer.  Its a lot harder to seethe with rage when basking in front of a home theater system so nerdily refined it’d make Helen Keller hot.  Still - and this is now me stowing exaggerations to remain objective - I did not enjoy it, rather i at last tolerated it.  Though truth be told, I do not have enough digits on my person to count how many times I either threw hands into the air or groaned, “So fucking stupid…”

I’ve tried Marshall fans, I really have.  We just don’t mate.  I despise every character in the script.  I find nothing redeemable about how they are written on the page or carried out on the screen.  The dwellers do nothing for me.  The plot does nothing.  The jolts nothing.  Just..nothing.  I find the whole ordeal a waste.

Now, I’m finally putting THE DESCENT behind me and the site.  No longer shall I entertain the idea of hunting that white whale.  I’ve finally realized that it never was my whale to hunt.  It was my white whale’s corpse beached upon a shallow shoreline.  I gotsta stop staring at this bloated mutha’.

Tags: Beau, Neil Marshall, Scott Weinberg, THE DESCENT