Compared to the original ending, the alternate ending of “The Descent” feels cowardly and afraid to end on a truly dark note. Yet for some, the American version is the superior one because it isn’t so bleak and hopeless, as /Film’s BJ Colangelo has written.

Marshall, though, thinks there was no happy ending for Sarah either way. She may escape the cave monsters in the American ending, but her own personal demons are still going to haunt her. She did leave Juno behind to be killed, so it’s no coincidence that she sees Juno haunting her. Sarah hasn’t healed from her trauma, she’s gotten plenty more of it, and it’s even worse because she’s now lost her friends too.

Marshall told Vulture in 2021 that American ending “reminded [him] of the end of ‘Texas Chainsaw Massacre.'” That movie ends with blood soaked final girl Sally (Marilyn Burns) escaping cannibalistic killer Leatherface (Gunnar Hansen) in the back of a pick-up truck. Leatherface spins around with his chainsaw while Sally looks back at him, half-laughing and half-sobbing. Sarah, another blonde covered in blood, does resemble Sally by the end of “The Descent.” Marshall continued:

“[Sarah] survives, but she’s clearly out of her mind with fear and madness. So I don’t see it as being a happy ending at all, having her get out of the cave.”

Conversely, Marshall thinks his preferred original ending is the one that gives Sarah a happier conclusion. As he explained in the aforementioned Empire interview: “To my mind, there’s no happiness for Sarah outside that cave. Her family’s dead, her friends are gone, she’s completely insane. The best version of it to me was Sarah being, in her head anyway, back with her daughter.”

In either version of “The Descent,” Sarah escaping the cave plays out like a fantasy: the abrupt return of daylight, the musical score getting discordantly triumphant, etc. Something is off about it, which pays off when it turns out it is a dream. Sarah’s imagination giving her that fantasy, and her rejecting it, speaks to what Marshall has said about her arc. Sarah has accepted that even if she did escape, she wouldn’t find peace. Only her daughter could bring that to her, so she imagines her daughter being alive again.

For as bleak as the original ending of “The Descent” is, Marshall prefers it because he thinks it’s more merciful to Sarah.