History Film / TheDescent

** Between this and ''Film/TwentyEightDaysLater'', killing an enemy by pushing its eyes in with your thumbs has apparently become the British horror symbol for "I've turned [[spoiler:psychopathic and metaphorically become one of the monsters."]]...which would, in this instance, mean that [[spoiler:Sarah is '[[IncrediblyLamePun losing sight]]' of who she is.]]

* CruelAndUnusualDeath: Poor [[spoiler:Becca]] arguably recieves the slowest, most painful death in the film - a Crawler rips open her stomach and starts devouring her innards while she is still alive. ''Ouch''.

** Sam gets a throwaway scene where she talks about a watch her boyfriend gave her. [[spoiler: The watch ends up going off when a Crawler is nearby, alerting them to their presence]].

* ArtisticLicensePhysics: You can all relax. If you get into a car accident with a vehicle that has copper pipes on top of it, they won't kill you like they did Paul and Jessica. Real life copper pipes can't actually penetrate a car's windshield. They'll deform before they can. At worst, they'll crack the windshield badly.

** [[spoiler:Beth]] walks very slowly up to within arm's reach of an ice-pick wielding [[spoiler:Juno]], right as she is just finishing up slaughtering a crawler and is clearly lost in her rage, and chooses never to say or do anything to announce her presence. [[spoiler:Juno mistakes her for a crawler and puts the pick through her neck.]]

** [[spoiler:Beth]] walks very slowly up to within arm's reach of an ice-pick wielding [[spoiler:Juno]], and chooses never to say or do anything to announce her presence. [[spoiler:Juno mistakes her for a crawler and puts the pick through her neck.]]

** When she taps into her badass state, Sarah gouges out the Crawler's eyes with her bare hands reminiscent of Jim killing one of the soldiers and coming to resemble the dead in ''Film/TwentyEightDaysLater''.

** [[spoiler:Juno, she lied and took her friends to an unknown cave system, as opposed to a cave system for tourists. With an inaccurate "flight plan" no one will know where to look for them when they all go missing, meaning rescue is effectively impossible. Even worse, this cave system is ''completely'' newly discovered and utterly unmapped, so there's absolutely no way to know what dangers are in it, where another exit is, or even '''if''' there's another exit.]]

** To ''Film/{{Brazil}}'', [[spoiler: with the UK ending revealing that Sarah didn't escape but has gone mad trapped in the caves, where she finds comfort in a final vision of her daughter akin to Sam Lowry going catatonic.]]

** The music in the scene where Juno and Sarah move through the caverns by flare light bears unmistakable resemblance to Morricone's theme from ''Film/TheThing1982''.

* {{The Morlocks}}: The crawlers, subterranean predatory cousins of humanity. Morlock creator Creator/HGWells is one of Neil Marshall's favorite writers.

* WeAllLiveInAmerica: A British movie, filmed in Britain, with British flora and fauna, and [[OurVampiresAreDifferent vampire]]-like cave monsters typical of European folklore. The setting: North Carolina.
* WeHardlyKnewYe: Paul and Jessica.

** TheChick: The one-time badass, now understandably fragile and unstable Sarah who's barely able to move without Beth's help. However, [[spoiler:the movie depicts her replacing Beth as TheLancer upon Beth's death and ultimately getting revenge on and killing Juno.]]

** TheChick: The one-time badass, now understandably fragile and unstable Sarah whose barely able to move without Beth's help. However, [[spoiler:the movie depicts her replacing Beth as TheLancer upon Beth's death and ultimately getting revenge on and killing Juno.]]

* [[BigBrotherInstinct Big Sister Instinct]]: Becca is very caring and protective towards her sweet little sister Sam, and to a lesser extent, the rest of the less-experienced caving group. Also, it's fairly subtle, but Beth displays [[BigBrotherInstinct Big Sister Instincts]] towards anyone in the group who needs it - she's constantly looking after the emotionally fragile (due to the death of her husband and child) Sarah, she gives her jacket to Holly after she breaks her leg and helps her stand and walk (along with [[TheMedic Sam]]) and she goes back to help Juno in the crawler fight. [[spoiler:Sadly, that last decision does ''not'' end well for her.]]

* BolivianArmyEnding: [[spoiler:Juno gets one, wounded and outnumbered, but we are given her final screams to guess her fate. In the UK ending, Sarah awakens still trapped in the caves, making her chances of survival seem unlikely.]] The sequel however reveals both of them to have survived the encounters!

* ShownTheirWork / ViewersAreGeniuses: Extremely subtle cues exist to foreshadow plot points.
** [[spoiler: The first crawlspace is clearly limestone, notoriously treacherous for cave-ins if not reinforced by more stable minerals. Given the close proximity to a riverbed, it's not unreasonable to assume it's just a thin coating... in a level 2 cave.]]
** The Crawlers have the auditory ShoutOut to the ''Franchise/{{Predator}}'' series. [[spoiler: They're similar to the clicks dolphins make, and are a very early tip-off that they use sonar.]]
** Also noteworthy how no one stops to [[AsYouKnow exposit on]] how various caving techniques work, e.g. the use of a lighter to find air currents.

** Administrivia/TropesAreNotBad, however, and [[spoiler:Beth]] was very likely either in shock or trying to avoid drawing the attention of the Crawlers, while [[spoiler:Holly]] was already well-established as a reckless sort.

* WorstAid: See the ArtisticLicenseMedicine open fracture example above.

* AlmostDeadGuy: [[spoiler:Beth.]]

* CatapultNightmare: Sarah in the cabin.

** A rather odd aversion. Extreme-sports expert Becca is able, with a great amount of difficulty, to climb across the roof of a cavern using a long rope and several [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carabiner carabiners.]] This is set-up for later when the much less experienced Sam has to do it with about three feet of rope, one carabiner, and no gloves to protect her hands. Realistically, she can't, [[spoiler:and then a crawler comes.]]

* CreepyChild: Sarah's constant hallucinations of Jessica arguably qualify.

* DangerTakesABackseat: Sort of. More like [[DangerTakesABackseat Danger Takes A Passenger Seat]]. [[spoiler:(Although this moment turns out to be one of Sarah's hallucinations.)]]

* DeathOfAChild: Jessica, and the death of the child Crawler may also count.

* DontSneakUpOnMeLikeThat: How [[spoiler: Juno]] kills [[spoiler: Beth]] with an ice pick through the back of the neck, quite gruesome.

* DwindlingParty

* EyeScream: Between this and ''Film/TwentyEightDaysLater'', killing an enemy by pushing its eyes in with your thumbs has apparently become the British horror symbol for "I've turned [[spoiler:psychopathic and metaphorically become one of the monsters."]]...which would, in this instance, mean that [[spoiler:Sarah is '[[IncrediblyLamePun losing sight]]' of who she is.]]

** See also ShownTheirWork / ViewersAreGeniuses below.

** The ''very first'' sighting of a Crawler can be seen very, very briefly in the scene where [[spoiler:Juno lights up a flare for the first time and throws it into the middle of the cave]]. It is very difficult to spot without pausing and looking closely. According to [[WordOfGod Neil Marshall]], this is actually a continuity error - the Crawler is one of the film crew. When this mistake was spotted, rather than remove it digitally, [[ThrowItIn the crewmember's face was deliberately whitened to bring it out more]], thus making him look like a hiding Crawler.
*** In the same scene, a Crawler can be seen [[spoiler: to the left-hand side of the screen when Sarah is looking around]] for a few seconds.
* FreudWasRight: Invoked by Neil Marshall on the DVD "Beneath the Scenes", where multiple jokes are made about how similar a piece of the cave is to a certain part of the female anatomy. To wit - "Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar!"

* HowlOfSorrow: [[spoiler:Sarah]], after she has well and truly [[HeroicBSOD lost it]].

* JumpScare:
** Starting with the bats and going on from there.
*** There's an even earlier one when Sarah has her nightmare in the cabin.
* TheKillerInMe: [[spoiler:See ThroughTheEyesOfMadness below for details.]]
* KillTheCutie: [[spoiler:Sam]].
* LeftForDead: [[spoiler:Beth]] and [[spoiler:Juno]].

* KillEmAll:
** [[spoiler:Everyone who gets a speaking part dies, two of them within the first five minutes. To be fair, there are only eight people in the whole cast. Playing humans, at least.]]
** That is, until the sequel changed this. [[spoiler:Sarah gets it together enough to stagger out of an entrance to the cave, albeit with amnesia about the last two days.]]

* UnwittingInstigatorOfDoom: Beth in the opening. Sarah wants to stay back to help her and Juno pack up their gear. She says to go on and let the two of them take care of it. In the car ride home, Paul gets distracted talking to Sarah, leading to the accident and his and Jessie's deaths.

** [[spoiler:Holly.]] Yes, run ahead of your fellow spelunkers in an unknown cave system! And you're surprised you fell in a hole?!

** The whole movie has ''many'' homages to ''Film/{{Deliverance}}'' peppered throughout the film, from scene shout--outs such as the rafting scene and Juno's red suit, to the premise of a same-gender group being trapped in an increasingly horrible situation in the rural Deep South of North America.

* {{The Morlocks}}: The crawlers. Morlock creator Creator/HGWells is one of Neil Marshall's favorite writers.