Visible crew/equipment: In the shot of Holly falling and breaking her leg, a wire can be seen at the top of the frame suspending her down. (00:48:35)
The Descent (2005)
Ending / spoiler
Directed by: Neil Marshall
Starring: Shauna Macdonald, Alex Reid, Natalie Mendoza, Saskia Mulder
Everybody dies except for Juno and Sarah. At the end, Juno and Sarah take on one last battle with the crawlers. After they're defeated, Sarah stands in front of Juno holding a pick axe. She then shows Juno the necklace that Beth took from Juno when she accidently killed Beth and left her to die. Soon, Juno realizes that Sarah knows about Beth and Juno's affair with Sarah's late husband as more crawlers come after them. Sarah impales Juno's leg with the axe and leaves her to die like Juno did to Beth. As Sarah runs, Juno's screams are heard through the caverns as the crawlers rip her apart. Sarah falls down a hole and lands on a pile of skeletal remains. She sees a light and heads out of the cave and into daylight, relieved that she escaped. She takes the vehicle they came in and drives away. She pulls to the side of the road where she lets out a cry of relief. A semi comes by and honks at her, making Sarah vomit out the window from being startled. When she pulls her head back in, the ghost of Juno is sitting there staring at her as she screams. The credits roll with the picture of the girls. In the UNRATED VERSION of the film, there's a second ending. When Sarah sees the ghost of Juno in the vehicle, she awakens inside the cave she fell into -- the escape was a dream she had while briefly unconscious. She can hear the cries of the crawlers as they come closer and closer. But, she's comforted by one final vision of her daughter as she sits in front of her with her birthday cake. But as the camera pans out, it shows that Sarah is staring at nothing, the birthday candles are just her flickering torch, and she's still trapped inside the cave with the crawlers. We hear the sound of the crawlers nearby as the film fades to the credits.
VIDS
Trivia: Due to the potential dangers of filming in a real cave the entirety of the film was shot on sets. Twenty one "caves" were built for the shoot.
Question: Can someone explain the end. Does she go insane and go back to the mountain, or did she never escape?
Answer: This depends on which version you have watched, as the UK and US versions have different endings. In the US version, after Sarah abandons Juno, she continues running through the cave, slips and is knocked unconscious, then sees daylight and escapes the cave. If it is the US version you are referring too, then the movie ends with her escaping the cave, and the sequel The Descent: Part 2 continues the story with her going back to the cave. If it is the UK version you are referring to, she is shown awakening back in the cave after escaping, revealing that the scene where she escaped was all a dream and she is still trapped in the cave. In this version, Sarah has lost her mind, brought on by the fact that her friends have all died and all hope of escaping has been lost. She succumbs to her insanity and chooses only to see something that will bring her happiness, which in this case is her daughter with a birthday cake. (Anything that happens in The Descent: Part 2 is irrelevant to the UK version as it follows on from the US ending).
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Answer: She does escape, as seen in the Descent Part 2.