Women in Horror: Top 30 Female Horror Movie Characters
By Jeremy Dick
The Descent (Lionsgate)
12. Sarah Carter (Shauna Macdonald, The Descent)
The Descent is a film which will make you claustrophobic just from watching it. It’s basically the story of a group of women whose spelunking adventure goes horribly awry. While exploring some underground caves, the ladies come across an unknown species of violent creatures. These things start ripping the women apart as those still alive search desperately for a way out.
Our protagonist Sarah Carter has many layers as a character. The film reveals that shortly before this excursion, Sarah lost her husband and daughter to a car accident. To make matters worse, he seemed to be having an affair before he died with Sarah’s friend Juno— who is present with Sarah in the caves.
The tension between these two ladies comes to a head when they wind up as the final two survivors. It’s probably much better for these women to work together to find a way out. But with her trusty pickaxe, Sarah incapacitates Juno Nancy Kerrigan style. Juno is left for dead as Sarah finds her own way out of the cave (or winds up stuck in there forever, depending on if you’re watching the UK and US version of the film).