Descent 2009

Critics score:
38 / 100

Reviews provided by RottenTomatoes

Scott Tobias, AV Club: Though a clearly gifted new filmmaker, Lugacy doesn't get a handle on the combustible material, and she gets scalded in the process. Read more

Wesley Morris, Boston Globe: Read more

Robert Abele, Los Angeles Times: It's indie provocation trapped between shock and blah. Read more

Lisa Schwarzbaum, Entertainment Weekly: Read more

Owen Gleiberman, Entertainment Weekly: It's been a while since we saw a demagogic feminist exploitation revenge drama, and Descent, while top-heavy with 'agenda,' is shrewdly done. Read more

Jack Mathews, New York Daily News: No moviegoer has done anything to deserve the images that director Talia Lugacy would throw in their face. Read more

Kyle Smith, New York Post: Look-at-me-I'm-a-filmmaker photography, pacing that has all the thrills of waiting in line at the post office and an utterly predictable plot combine to make the movie even worse than the hacky chick revenge fantasy now showing on channel 186 of your box. Read more

James Berardinelli, ReelViews: Read more

Andrew O'Hehir, Salon.com: It's a lot like a '70s exploitation movie, with its determination to seduce and shock the viewer with alternating currents of electrical stimulus, and its weird combination of arty arch-decadence and neo-Victorian moralizing. Read more

Joshua Rothkopf, Time Out: Read more

John Anderson, Variety: [Rosario Dawson] could have provided a 100-minute closeup and revealed more about human nature and anguish than all of Descent. Read more

Ernest Hardy, Village Voice: A well-acted trifle straining to be a hard-hitting morality play. Read more