Rental of the Week: Oh the horror!

O.M.G. I saw the scariest, made-me-watch-through-my-fingers, movie the other night.

Actually, I should say we just finished watching the scariest movie which we started watching three nights ago because in recent days we have not been able to watch a movie in one fluid, continuous, consecutive, whatever-the-word-is, period of time.

No, no, these days Bumper has reminded us that adult together time is a privilege granted by her and not our right, regardless of our attempts and tireless quests to keep her happy. She seems to have a knack for waking up about an hour into every film we have tried to watch together over the holidays. Bumper must be in a sleep regression, or whatever you call it* phase and depriving us of (1) chill time and (2) sleep. It's probably due to the travelling and will solve itself but I'm probably screwed in it for a long haul because we are going away again next week. I'm so screwed.

* I plead sleep deprivation for the obvious problem that I'm exhibiting by being unable to find the right words to get my point across - my god, does that sentence even make sense?

What happened Bumper? We were doing so well but now it's just like ol' times way back a few months ago when sleeping was something done in two hour periods punctuated with crying that could not be self-soothed and always required one of us. Sigh. I thought those days were behind us.

Anyhow, enough complaining and more movie reviewing.

We rented The Descent and for the most part I enjoyed it because it actually made me squirm, scream and feel like hyperventilating - and this was all before the freakin' scary creatures made a debut. Now that's good.

It does have it flaws and it was confusing sometimes to the point of annoying because it takes place in dark caves and some of the characters look alike. And if you are anything like me, names don't always stick unless the name is something like Al Capone, Moses or Eric Cartman so trying to remember if that was Beth or Sarah proved difficult and once they were covered in blood, sweat and the general look of horror, well heck, they all looked alike.

But these flaws did not outweigh the fact that it was able to invoke the feelings of claustrophobia, fear and oh f*ck mentality that I want from a horror movie. I'm not watching it for the plot, I'm watching it for the splotch.

So to get to the point, it's not for the faint of heart or someone who can't tolerate plot issues and continuity errors (a few that are glaring as a white polyester pantsuit on your Aunt Gladys). But I love the fact that it didn't depend on stoned teenagers, sex or scantily clad girls to draw in the audience.

It focuses on a group of outdoor adventure seeking women who know each other in varying degrees. While on vacation they decide to check out some caves in the Appalachian mountains and we all know what kind of folks can turn up in those parts. No offence to those kind of folk or those parts. Anyhow, I'm off topic again.

With only spoiling a little bit, the movie revolves around guilt, the unspoken secrets of relationships and how much trust is the foundation of friendship. And oh yeah, gross looking blood thirsty cave creatures.

Sure, it's no Psycho when it comes to the script and sometimes the choices the characters made didn't completely jive but the flaws appeared necessary to keep the story moving. Suspension of disbelief is heavily needed in watching but the sheer terror of claustrophobia alone is convincing and had me breathing into a paper bag. When I want horror I like to squirm and this one did just that. I give it one severed thumb up.

Note: I watched the unrated Directors cut and I've heard that the rated American version has a different ending. Since I was not satisfied with the ending in the unrated release I'm curious if anyone saw it in the theatre - feel free to email me and let me know how it ended (motherbumper at mac dot com).