THE DECENT

THE DECENT (1,2)

TRILLER

A whitewater rafting trip is underway, with 3 long-time friends on board. Leading the trip is the bold adventurer, Juno (Natalie Mendoza). Also there is wife and mother Sarah (Shauna Macdonald) and her closest friend, Beth (Alex Reid), both British. Awaiting at the end of the raft adventure is Sarah's husband, Paul (Oliver Milburn) and daughter, Jessica (Molly Kayll). Paul and Juno share a strange moment before he drives to go back home with Sarah and Jessica. While Sarah and Paul are seemingly on the cusp of an argument, a small truck plows head-on to their car, sending a metal rod right through Paul's skull.

Sarah has the first in a series of dreams where Jessica appears in a party dress and seems to offer Sarah a birthday cake. Awakening from her injuries in the accident in the hospital, Sarah panics and runs down the hallway, imagining the hospital getting dark around her. Beth embraces her and they both weep. Juno, standing in the distance and also crying, turns and leaves them.

A year later, Juno has organized a spelunking (caving-diving) trip in the Appalachian Mountains. The three women from the raft trip gather at a cabin the day before this adventure.




An additional 3 adventurers join them, including Juno's butch friend Holly (Nora-Jane Noone), who even Juno considers too reckless

The other two are a pair of European-rooted sisters, the safety-cautious, older sister, Rebecca (Saskia Mulder) and medical student Sam (MyAnna Buring), who, though competent, is the least experienced adventurer of the group.Tension remains between Juno and Beth and Sarah over Juno's abandonment of them last year. Holly laments the the cave they are to explore is just a tourist trap and offers no challenges. That night, Sarah has a nightmare that a steel rod hits her face just as it did Paul's.

Waking her five companions the following morning, Juno leads them on a long drive over rough country road. When leaving the cars, Juno seems to intentionally leave behind the cave map. Hiking to the cave entrance, they encounter the huge carcass of a bull elk, with his throat seemingly having been torn open. All the women except Juno and Holly become hesitant when they see the cavernous entrance to the cave. 

They all rappel down into the first pocket in the cave. Descending still further, all daylight is vanished. Juno lights a series of flares, illuminating the huge cavern of the cave system that they've entered. Even Holly is impressed, recording her surroundings with her high-tech night-vision digital camera. 



As the women temporarily further prepare, Juno indicates they are looking for a tunnel to bring them further into the cave system. Juno apologizes to Sarah for leaving the previous year and grows tearful when recalling Paul. Seemingly trying to avoid this conversation, Sarah goes off on her own and finds a small tunnel entrance.

One by one, the women go into the tunnel, which grows even smaller midway before coming out in another large space of the caves. Sarah is the last to come through and gets stuck on a rock. Sarah turns to claustrophobic panic. Beth, at first, tries to calm Sarah and then climbs back down the tunnel to help her out. As Beth pulls Sarah out, the tunnel roof begins to tremble and, just as the two pull out, totally collapses behind them. The whole group is distraught at the tunnel collapse, since it is obviously their return route out of the caves. Juno then reveals to the others that she not only didn't bring the cave map, but she has intentionally taken them to an unexplored cave rather than the cave to which she claimed she was taking them. Juno desired to be the first to explore these caves and have the caves named after her. The others are angered, but Juno informs them that they must keep moving and look for another exit to the cave lest they die in there.

The group comes to an enormous precipice in the cave. In order to get across to a hopeful exit, they must set up a pulley system on the roof of the precipice. Rebecca painfully climbs along the roof using only her arms, hooking the rope to the cave roof. Finally arriving to the opposite side of the precipice, Rebecca sees a hook obviously left by a previous explorer of the cave. Each of the women cross the precipice using the pulley system and Juno goes last. Claiming they will need all the equipment they can get, Juno pulls down the rope pulley as she crosses the roof. Near the end, Juno loses her grip and falls. Rebecca must grab the rope to get keep Juno from falling and her hands nearly tear in half supporting Juno's weight. Juno finally climbs up the precipice wall to join the others.

As the six women move on, a drooling mouth is seen in the foreground but is not detected by the women. When walking through the caves, they encounter an ancient-looking mural, resembling a community drawn by early Native Americans. Beth notices that a second exit from the cave is shown on the mural.

When it's time to continue, Holly runs in the front. She sees what appears to be daylight (but is actually just phosphorescent rock) and rushes even more, despite Juno telling her to slow down. Suddenly Holly falls down a huge pit in the cave. Her leg is snapped in the fall, her bone painfully protruding from her skin. All the others rappel down into the pit and tend to Holly. Sam pulls Holly's leg back into place and makes a makeshift tourniquet for her. Meanwhile, Sarah has wandered away from the group. She finds an old, rusty miner's helmet. Looking up she is shocked to see a grotesque creature in the distance. The creature appears humanoid, but is hairless and deformed-looking with sharp claws and small eye sockets. In a moment, the creature disappears as Juno comes to find Sarah. Juno and the group don't believe Sarah about the creature and they all, including the limping Holly, go on to find a way out of the cave..........(Count)