Tough to pick one film this week – it seems Christmas has come early for film buffs – but if you’ve seen the trailers for this excellent horror flick you’ll already be lined up to watch it, preferably in bed with the lights off and the covers drawn up around your face. If you’re afraid of heights, enclosed spaces, the dark, or all three, you’re in for a rare treat with this one.

From the impeccable director Neil Marshall (who also made Dog Soldiers) this is yet further proof that no-one does horror like the British and The Descent is more than a match for the other horror on offer this week (Blair Witch, Dawn of the Dead, The Thing

Sportswoman Sarah (Shauna Macdonald) survives a car crash that claims her husband and daughter and a year later is invited on a deep caving expedition in the Appalachian Mountains with her friends Beth (Alex Reid), Rebecca (Saskia Mulder), Sam (MyAnna Buring) and Holly (Nora-Jane Noone).

Headed up by Juno (Natalie Mendoza), the expedition is three kilometres underground when a rock collapses blocking the access tunnel and trapping the group in the cave. Trying to find a way out before their limited supplies are exhausted, they encounter a tribe of subterranean predators. But in trying to escape the predators the history between the women begins to tear at the group even more ferociously than the teeth of the cannibalistic cave dwellers.

The Descent: C4, Monday 3 December, 10pm

Worth a look:
Chopper: BBC Two, Monday 3 December, 00.20am
Goodfellas: Five, Monday 3 December, 10pm
Jagged Edge: More4, Monday 3 December, 10.10pm
Midnight Cowboy: C4, Tuesday 4 December, 1am
The Bourne Identity: ITV2, Thursday 6 December, 9pm