Neil Marshall is one of the UK's finest directors, with Dog Soldiers, Centurion and Doomsday to his credit, but the action-horror that brought him into the public consciousness was The Descent.
A year after her daughter's death in a car crash, Sarah (Shauna Macdonald) and five fellow extreme-sports enthusiasts find themselves lost and trapped in a previously unexplored cave system in the Appalachian Mountains.
Marshall's innovative tale of the all-female expedition soon makes them prey for the cannibalistic humanoids who live down there.
To Marshall's credit - he wrote the screenplay as well as directing - the first half of the movie is just the women pitted against the natural hazards of the cave system, and if you weren't claustrophobic going into this film these scenes are enough to make you think twice about ever considering going underground again.
The monsters don't show up until the midway point and from then on it's a brutal fight for survival, magnificently shot with various lighting gimmicks to emphasize the oppressive and terrifying situation the women are in.
One of those films best watched with the lights off and curtains closed - for the full atmospheric effect - The Descent is a superlative horror movie, on both psychological and physical levels, that just gets better and better with repeat viewings.
And for those wondering, the title also refers to Sarah's descent into madness.
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