The Descent: One Disturbing Theory Totally Changes How You View The Movie

"The Descent" is one of the scariest movies of the 2000s. It sees a group of women go on a spelunking trip, only to become trapped in the underground caverns. And if that isn't bad enough, they're soon pursued by some of the scariest monsters put to film, who pick them off one by one. It's a tense, claustrophobic story that may be even scarier when watching it with one particular fan theory in mind. 

Redditor u/aiai92 suggests that there are never any cave-dwelling creatures, and that Sarah (Shauna Macdonald) kills her friends due to her descent into madness after her husband and daughter are killed in a car crash at the beginning of the film. Compounded with her later learning her husband was having an affair with her friend, Juno (Natalie Mendoza), Sarah goes berserk on her friends. The Redditor points to several pieces of evidence to support this, such as Sarah being on pills and references to hallucinations — Sarah might think she's seeing the beasts when it's all in her own mind.

They also mention, "Sarah behaves like a monster. She emerges from a pool of blood and even bites a monster on the neck like the monsters." According to this, Sarah is the one picking off her friends one by one, and when one of them attacks her, that's her battling her own deranged thoughts. It's an intriguing theory that ties into the film's themes of trauma and betrayal, but more than likely, the real monsters all along are ... monsters.

"The Descent 2" might initially seem to lend credence to the fan theory. The sequel sees Sarah emerge from the cave but with amnesia regarding what transpired down there. To find out what happened to the other women, Sarah, some cave exploring specialists, and Sheriff Vaines (Gavan O'Herlihy) go down to learn the truth, with Vaines suspecting Sarah was the one who killed them all along. Redditor u/aiai92 even calls attention to this in the theory breakdown: "When [they] found the first dead body in part 2, Sarah appeared guilty as [opposed] to shocked." It could have been fascinating for audiences to have doubts regarding Sarah's role in her friend's death, but the sequel also soon confirms that there are actually monsters down in the cave.

At one point, the team stumbles upon the video camera that was used in the first movie, with Sarah hiding nearby as the others watch the recordings. They see various clips of the women being together, and it crescendos to a crawler appearing behind one of them on camera. The explorers react to the sight of the creature, confirming the crawlers are down there. 

While there are literal monsters in the cave, the fan theory does strengthen an interesting theme. "The Descent" isn't just about these women descending into a cave. It's also about Sarah's descent into madness. Juno, who could be considered the true villain, has a mad descent of her own, even abandoning her friend Beth (Alex Reid) in the first film. The crawlers may be real, but there's more than one monster out there in the world.