Saturday, October 17, 2026

Extremely Difficult Trivia About "The Descent" (2005)

      This one might be a bit more obscure than most of the movies I do quizzes about, but I don't care.  More people should know about this film.  And, it did get a sequel, indicating that the first movie had a decent amount of viewers.  (Alas, by all accounts the sequel was terrible.)  Anyway, let's discuss this fine offering from Neil Marshall, whose first film, "Dog Soldiers," was covered in my post on October 12, 2019.  Usual setup, questions than answers, many SPOILERS.


Questions:

1)    In the opening scenes, who are the characters in the raft, right before the terrible car accident?

2)    What is the name of Sarah's daughter?

3)    Right before the accident, Sarah askes her daughter if she should call her friend's mother.  Who is this?

4)    Beth and Sarah pass a National Park on the way to the cabin.  Which one?

5)    Which U.S. state is the mysterious cave located in?

6)    Only one character's last name is spoken in the movie.  Name them.

7)    What is the name of Sam's sort of boyfriend?

8)    Where did Holly used to live?  (She says she ran out of things to jump off of there.)

9)    Sam is still in school.  What's her field of study?

10)   What was the inspirational saying of Sarah's late husband Paul?

11)   What two characters play rock (stone), paper, scissors to see who drives to the caverns?

12)   Who drives the second vehicle?

13)   What level number of difficulty is Boreham Caverns?

14)   What is Holly's disparaging nickname for Boreham Caverns?

15)   Holly mentions free climbing a building back home.  Which one?

16)   Becca mentions two rules for caving.  Name them.

17)   Becca also mentions a litany of medical issues that can happen during caving.  Name them.

18)   Beth compares herself negatively to a famous movie and video game character.  Name them.

19)   The ladies see a dead animal near the path to the cave.  What animal is it/

20)   Beth tells Sarah a joke to distract her when she temporarily gets stuck.  What is this joke?

21)   According to Becca, how many ways in and out does Boreham have?

22)   The ladies find an old piton (a piece of climbing equipment) in the ceiling of a tunnel.  How old does Juno say it is?

23)   According to the cave painting the ladies see, how many entrances/exits are part of this cave system?

24)   What two other pieces of evidence do the ladies find to indicate that other (non-monstrous or non-mutated) humans have been in this cave system?

25)   Holly accidently falls and injures herself.  What is this injury?

26)   What did Holly mistake for sunlight, according to Juno?

27)   At the end, Sarah wounds Juno with her axe. Where on Juno's body?

28)   There's a bumper sticker on the front bumper of the 2nd vehicle, the one that Sarah uses at the end.  What does the sticker read?

29)   What characters are seen smoking marijuana early in the movie?

30)   What does Beth do for a living?

31)   Was Juno having an affair with Sarah's husband Paul?  (Conjectural)

32)   Who's the first character to get a significant injury?  (Not counting minor bumps and bruises and such).

33)   Sarah repeatedly gets a vision of her sitting with her daughter, with a birthday cake between them.  How many candles are on this cake?

34)   True or False?  Sarah and Juno are the only characters seen killing a Crawler.  (Crawlers are the name for the humanoid/bat creatures that attack the ladies.)

35)   What is the only living animal species that the ladies see in the movie?

36)   What characters do we see being eaten by a Crawler, or Crawlers?

37)   Did Sarah make her way out of the cave?  (Conjectural)









Answers:

1)    Sarah, Juno, and Beth.

2)    Jessica, who's also called Jessie.

3)    Rachel.

4)    Chatooga.  Chattooga (note the slightly different spelling) is a real river that goes through North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia.  There is no National Park of this name, though.

5)    It's never said.  The movie notes that it's just in a state with Appalachian Mountains in it, which means it could one of like 10 states.  One of the vehicles does have North Carolina plates on it, but this could be Juno or Holly's personal vehicle, and not a rental.  Or it could be a rental, but they were near a border and crossed into another state to get to the cave.

6)    Sam's last name is Van Ney.  And since Becca is Sam's half sister, her surname might be different.

7)    Josh.

8)    Galway, Ireland.

9)    Medical doctor.

10)   Love Each Day.

11)   Juno and Beth.  Beth wins, but then Sarah grabs the keys and drives the vehicle herself.

12)   Becca.

13)   It's a Level 2 cave.  Most cavers use a 1-5 class system.  Also, there is no cave of this name in the U.S., but there is one in the U.K., in North Yorkshire.

14)   Boredom Caverns.

15)   The Galway Cathedral.

16)   #1 File a flight plan and stick to it.  #2 Don't go wandering off.

17)   Dehydration, disorientation, claustrophobia, panic attacks, paranoia, hallucinations, visual and aural deterioration.

18)   Tomb Raider, or more specifically, Lara Croft.

19)   An elk.  I thought this was a mistake, and elk don't live in the Eastern U.S., but apparently some do.

20)   How do you give a lemon an orgasm?  You tickle its citrus.

21)   3.  Although, as they find out, they're not in Boreham, so this info is useless.

22)   Over 100 years old.

23)   2.

24)   Sarah finds an old caving helmet, and Juno spots some painted arrows on a tunnel wall.

25)   She suffers a compound fracture of her left tibia.  (The larger of the two bones of the lower leg.)

26)   Phosphorus in the rocks.

27)   Her left knee.

28)   Rock Chic.  Probably as in Rock Chick, a lady rock climber, and it got cut off, or spelled differently, I think.

29)   Holly and Sam.

30)   She's an English teacher.

31)   All signs point to "yes."  She and Paul had a weird intimate moment as he helps her get out of the river, right before the car accident.  Later in speaking about the accident with Beth, Juno says, "We all lost somebody in that crash."  Finally, and most damningly, Juno always wears a necklace which we later learn has Paul's saying "Love Each Day" printed on it.  And, after Sarah shows the necklace to Juno, Juno doesn't deny it, or act defensive about it in any way.

32)   Becca's hand is cut quite badly from rope burn, shortly before Holly's fall.

33)   In most of the visions/hallucinations it's five, but at the very end it's six.

34)   True.  Sam stabs one, which clearly wounds it, and causes it to fall in the water.  But it attacks Juno when she jumps in later, so she has to finish it off.

35)   They see some bats flying near the cave entrance.

36)   We see Holly being consumed by several Crawlers, and the Crawler that kills Becca does so by chewing into her torso.

37)   It depends on what country you saw the movie in, and what version of it.  If you accept the sequel as canon, she did, since the Sarah character definitely made it out, and is forced back in during "The Descent Part 2."  Also, in the version of the original shown in U.S. theaters, she does escape.  In the version shown in other countries this escape is another hallucination, and eventually we see her back in the caves, surrounded by Crawlers, surely not long for this world.

     Finally, there's a fan theory that I find interesting, which is there were no Crawlers at all.  Sarah went crazy early on and killed all her friends, all the while hallucinating the monsters.  Finally finally, if you haven't seen this movie, do yourself a service and track it down--it's really fun and great.
















































 















   

























   








    










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