Visible crew/equipment: When the girls light the first flare in the cave, the top of a crew member's head is visible, as he is crouched behind a rock. This is confirmed by Director Neil Marshall on the DVD cast commentary.
The Descent (2005)
Plot summary
Directed by: Neil Marshall
Starring: Shauna Macdonald, Alex Reid, Natalie Mendoza, Saskia Mulder
Three friends - Sarah, Beth, and Juno - partake in a white water rapid expedition. The adventure ends safely and happily when the three women reach calmer water and Sarah's husband, Paul, and daughter, Jessica, who wait on the bank of the river. When no one is watching, Paul affectionately helps Juno with her helmet. Sarah leaves with her family, saying she will meet the others at the hotel. On the drive to the hotel, Sarah asks Paul if he is okay; Paul is temporarily distracted and collides head-on with a vehicle transporting copper poles. Both Paul and Jessica are impaled and killed by the poles, which Sarah discovers after waking up alone in a hospital bed. Sarah is haunted by dreams of her daughter blowing out candles on her birthday cake.
Sarah reunites with Beth and Juno for a caving expedition one year later in the Appalachian Mountains of North Carolina. They are joined by Holly, Juno's Scottish "protege" and sports enthusiast, as well as half-sisters Rebecca, an experienced climber, and Sam, a medical student who studies in America. After spending the night in a cabin, drinking and reminiscing, the women leave to explore a nearby cave (level 2 difficulty). The women head deeper into the cave, crawling through a narrow tunnel in which Sarah is almost trapped. The tunnel caves in behind Sarah, forcing her to abandon one of the group's bags of rope. Frightened and desperate, the group turns to Juno for direction. Juno reveals that she has left the guide book in the car, and Rebecca rejects the reassurance that local authorities will locate them in the event they don't return - Rebecca registered their intended expedition plans with Mountain Rescue, but Juno has deliberately led them to a different cave.
When crossing a deep chasm, the women find climbers' equipment left by past explorers. They quickly lose hope of escape, realizing that no explorer has successfully exited the cave because the cave remains unnamed (naming rights typically go to the first successful explorers). The women ultimately discover what has killed all explorers of the cave: an adapted form of cannibalistic human that locates prey (both human and animal) by sound.
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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.