New Trailer for 'The Descent: Part 2'

I don't know what critic from Daily Star called The Descent "the most terrifying monster movie since Alien," but that's too much praise. Oh, it's got a great pace and an even better concept, but once it was completely blood-soaked, The Descent failed to ascend. I still liked it a lot, but there was some zigging where some zagging might have been in order.

Anyway, that's how the new trailer for the sequel, aptly titled The Descent: Part 2, begins. Horror sequels are really, really, really hard to get right, because even if the first movie worked, the sequel is usually the same set of tricks with slightly new characters. The beauty of the simplicity of Friday the 13th, for example, is that it's usually the same movie, only in New York or outer space. Still didn't work very well, but you knew what you were getting. So that's one of the reasons I'm not as ecstatic about The Descent: Part 2 as some writers. I'm also putting a little stock in Neil Marshall not returning behind the camera. It's not his script, and he won't direct, although he's still an executive producer. What I hope is that the new creative team remembers what was so good about the original film and doesn't just order new vats of blood. Here's that new trailer...

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Entire (Dead) Cast Returning for 'The Descent 2'

Frankly, I was a bit surprised when the sequel to The Descent was announced. I was more surprised when several cast members from the original were linked to the sequel. Why? Well, it's a horror movie. You do the math. And now Empire is throwing us an even bigger curve ball, which is weird because they're British and probably don't know the mechanics of such a pitch. Anyway, the news is that Neil Marshall is bringing back...everyone. What? How? "We're all back, all the girls have made an appearance" confirmed MyAnna Buring, who plays Sam. "We'll all appear in flashbacks. We had that video camera in the first film, remember, so [it's footage from that]." Oh, the old flashback trick. Sneaky. Strangely, Marshall himself is not back, at least not as the director. This time around it'll be Jon Harris following up the girl-on-girl bloodbath, and Buring says the new boss is "doing an amazing job." And while the storyline for The Descent 2 is supposed to be something of a secret we now know that the story begins shortly after the first one ended with Sarah (Shauna MacDonald) surviving, which could go anywhere, but my educated guess is that it will have something to do with revisiting her gruesome past, which will involve looking for her friends back in the cave. And then, you know, high tea. Oh, and just because we're suckers for this sort of thing when it's done well (although in this case it's not), an alternate title for the 2009 sequel is The De2cent. No foolin'.