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Descent
Metascore
45 out of 100

Mixed or average reviews - based on 10 Critics

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 3 out of 10
  2. Mixed: 3 out of 10
  3. Negative: 4 out of 10
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  1. Entertainment Weekly
    Reviewed by: Owen Gleiberman
    75
    It's been a while since we saw a demagogic feminist exploitation revenge drama, and Descent, while top-heavy with ''agenda,'' is shrewdly done.
  2. Salon.com
    Reviewed by: Andrew O'Hehir
    70
    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.
  3. The New York Times
    Reviewed by: Matt Zoller Seitz
    70
    Hard to watch but essential to see, Descent is at once realistic and rhetorical, and driven throughout by righteous anger that comes from an honest place.
  4. Village Voice
    Reviewed by: Ernest Hardy
    60
    A well-acted trifle straining to be a hard-hitting morality play.
  5. The A.V. Club
    Reviewed by: Scott Tobias
    58
    Though a clearly gifted new filmmaker, Lugacy doesn't get a handle on the combustible material, and she gets scalded in the process.
  6. Variety
    Reviewed by: John Anderson
    50
    Pic's message is the one thing that's made clear: A victim can sink lower than her predator. Whether receiving that message justifies the cost of watching Descent is another question.
  7. TV Guide
    Reviewed by: Maitland McDonagh
    38
    Too elliptical to be convincing.
  8. Los Angeles Times
    Reviewed by: Robert Abele
    30
    Depending on your revenge story preferences, the brutally pretentious Descent is either a payback flick with an agonizingly formless middle, or a soul-darkening head trip bracketed by a crude vengeance tale. Mostly, though, it's indie provocation trapped between shock and blah.
  9. New York Daily News
    Reviewed by: Jack Mathews
    25
    There is no excusing date rape, but the revenge conceived and executed by Rosario Dawson's Maya in this revolting, amateurish drama is something you might only wish on Osama Bin Laden.
  10. New York Post
    Reviewed by: Kyle Smith
    12
    Even worse than the hacky chick revenge fantasy now showing on channel 186 of your box.
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User Reviews

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User Score
6.5 out of 10

Generally favorable reviews- based on 6 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 0 out of 2
  2. Mixed: 1 out of 2
  3. Negative: 1 out of 2
  1. ChadS.
    4
    French New Wave filmmaker Jean-Luc Godard once said that "cinema history is the history of boys photographing girls." Where this filmmaker is coming from, one can only stare saucer-eyed with begrudging admiration, but the Godard quote isn't a bad place to start, as we watch Maya(Rosario Dawson) anally probe Jared(Chad Faust). Ready or not, the American cinema now has a sexual provocateur of its very own, a female filmmaker cut from the same mold as France's Catherine Breillat, whose fearless use of graphic sex may result in high-brow "adult" films such as "Romance" and "Fat Girl", rather than high-minded schlock like "Descent". First, the film puts us to sleep with its character-driven narrative, and then jars us awake by the unrepentant brutality of Maya's revenge plan. David Slade's "Hard Candy" makes the same mistake. When the tables are turned; the woman wins, but she loses the audience's sympathy. Arguably, even a pedophile, even a rapist, doesn't deserve to be tortured.… Full Review »
  2. RobbyT.
    2
    This movie feels like it was made by an amateur lesbian director who needs to ease up on the pills. See Hard Candy instead.
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