Descendent

Why I took it off the list:

I sadly didn’t make it to see anything at the Sitges Film Festival this year, but this was one of the films that intrigued me from the program.

I usually enjoy alien-related films, having recently watched the decent abduction thriller Dark Encounter, and liked the lead actor, Ross Marquand, in his role as Aaron in The Walking Dead. So when I saw it had hit streaming, I decided to check it out.

So, let’s dig in!

Review of Descendent (2025)

Descendent begins inside an ultrasound scan, before the camera pulls out to reveal expectant parents Sean (Marquand) and Andrea (Sarah Bolger) being consulted by an obstetrician.

They’re clearly excited for the new arrival, but Sean is preoccupied by texts from his boss. He works in private security at a school and is angling for a more lucrative job for a tech billionaire, but he has to bulk up first.

One night, while out lifting weights in the garage, Sean sees a mysterious light flitting about in the sky. Then a few nights later while fixing a light on the school’s roof, he has an even closer encounter with the UFO.

Seemingly abducted into a spacecraft, he’s strapped down using a gooey net, with the aliens taking his blood and affixing all sorts of probes to him. He catches a glimpse of a mysterious fellow patient, who later turns out to be his dead father, on the slab next to him, before passing out.

He awakes in the hospital, with a worried Andrea telling him he simply fell off the roof. And he initially has no memory of what happened.

But once at home and convalescing, he has a nightmare about Andrea being dragged away by a menacing extraterrestrial, and visions of his wife in extreme pain in labor. He also starts drawing and painting, skills he hadn’t had before the ‘accident’.

He gets referred to a psychologist, to whom he shows his drawings, mostly of the aliens and their crafts. She diagnoses him with having sudden savant syndrome after hitting his head.

Sean starts to have more visions of both the abduction and the failed delivery of his baby. Becoming increasingly paranoid, he buys a gun to protect his family.

Marquand’s Acting Keeps it Watchable

The biggest asset Descendent has going for it is its cast. Marquand and Bolger are appealing and make for a convincing loving couple.

Marquand is also good at playing haunted and traumatized, and convincingly portrays a full-on breakdown later in the film. Bolger is somewhat underserved by an undemanding concerned wife role, but she does get at least one big emotional monologue, which she nails.

There’s also some welcome comedic relief, courtesy of a fatalistic hardware store clerk, and Sean’s best friend/adopted brother.

However, there are 2 big problems with Descendent. At its core, it’s the same abduction story we’ve seen a dozen times before, in films like Fire in the Sky, maybe with a dash more family drama.

And for an alien horror film, there’s not much extraterrestrial terror to speak of after the abduction, except for in Sean’s visions. The film’s ambiguous, understated ending also isn’t very satisfying.

Final score: 5/10

Descendent (2025): Worth Watching

It depends. Marquand’s committed central performance makes Descendent watchable, but it’s a slow, derivate alien abduction story that’s maybe a bit too ambiguous for its own good.