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"The Descent" : My 9th Favorite Horror Movie
Greetings, Bidites, and welcome back to my 25 favorite horror movies countdown. My last choice was Matt Reeves' atmospheric Let Me In, a modern take on the clasc vampire tale. With this installment, we'll take a look at a high octane thriller out of the UK that features monsters it can claim as original creations all its own. Please join me in celebrating my 9th favorite horror movie of all time:The Descent
This 2005 outing from writer/director Neil Marshall opens and closes with a bang, and is pretty much all action in the middle, too. There are a handful of quieter scenes dedicated strictly to character development in the early minutes of The Descent, but Marshall's eagerness to get down to the buness of pitting human against monster deep in the bowels of the earth is apparent from the get go. This is entirely a good thing, nce Marshall displays a deft ability to flesh his characters out even in the middle of their struggle to survive. Much is communicated through pregnant lences and meaningful expresons, not to mention the decive actions the characters take to defend themselves and each other. All of this makes The Descent a complex and impresve horror film which required the talents of actors, not just action stars .The film revolves around a group of young women who seem to all be in their mid 20's to early 30's. Most of them are longtime friends who take annual trips together. All x of the central characters have substantial parts, but the two undeniable leads are Sarah (Shauna Macdonald) and Juno (Natalie Mendoza). There is unresolved conflict between the two women involving the recent death of Sarah's husband and daughter. Beth (Alex Reid) also remains suspicious of Juno, obviously ding with Sarah in the unspoken drama. The group is rounded out by Rebecca (Saskia Mulder) and Sam (MyAnna Buring), sters who mostly manage to get along without bickering. This year, they are being joined for the first time by Holly (Nora-Jane Noone), a newer friend of Juno's who she invited along. Every year, the friends apparently undertake a different adventure chosen by a different person. This time around, Juno has decided to take everyone caving. What no one else except her initially realizes is that they're not actually going to the cave system they filed an expedition plan for. Juno is leading them instead to a new cave system which, as far as she knows, no one has ever explored before. This detail becomes important later on, when a cave in traps the women within undiscovered earthen chambers where no rescue team would have any reason to look for them. Of course, those circumstances alone are not bad enough for a horror film, so it turns out there is an undiscovered species of vaguely humanoid creature down there with them. Macdonald turns in a riveting performance as the grieving Sarah. Still haunted by nightmares about the accident that killed her family, her fragility is palpable, yet she also has a quiet resolve about her that becomes quite fierce at times. It is this quality which has allowed her to survive her grief and it is this quality which helps her do alright for herself against the beasties that live within the dark caverns. Mendoza holds her own as Juno, a real Type A personality who seems to be trying just a little hard to be genuine and has a history of deceit and betrayal. Juno's dere to put the past behind them and be a true friend to Sarah seems real, if perhaps a bit self-serving. It is in her nature to apologize to Sarah over and over, through words and grand gestures, just as it is in Sarah's more reserved nature to never explicitly say that she has forgiven Juno, even though she is not openly hostile towards her either. The dynamic between these two skilled actors is the heart of this film and it never fails to sustain the excitement. Even as they fight de by de against a virtual army of slimy, taloned creatures, the viewer can never be quite certain that one of them isn't about to betray the other. The other characters are in the hands of good actors, as well. Every ngle one of them comes across as a three-dimenonal human being and the group has good chemistry together as a whole. Each loss is felt whenever one of them falls victim to the subterranean horde. Alex Reid does stellar work in her character's final scenes, making Beth's demise one of the most shocking and heartbreaking moments of the movie.The creatures themselves are an absolute triumph of horror. Bleach white and hairless, with long, thin arms, razored hands, ratlike ears and blind, milky eyes, they look pretty much like an undiscovered species that evolved to hunt underground should, and like nothing any of us who live above ground would ever want to meet. Costume degner Nancy Thompson and The Descent's make up and effects team did some truly inspired work for the film. Not many original creations in horror get to join the pantheon of vampires, werewolves and zombies in the collective subconscious, but in my opinion, the creatures from The Descent deserve to. For the most part, they are just wild animals who see the women as food, although a couple scenes do hint that perhaps they have some form of social or family structure. Whatever their motives, they are shrieking, savage, unholy-looking terrors who have every advantage over the trapped and lost human cavers, especially as they sustain more and more injuries in their efforts to find freedom. Never given a name by the script itself, they are referred to as Crawlers on The Descent's page at imdb.com and I, for one, hope to see a lot more of them in the future. The set degners are worthy of special recognition, as well. The underground world of the Crawlers looks so authentic that I just assumed the movie was shot in an actual cave system. I was quite surprised to discover,via Wikipedia.com, that the actors were moving around an elaborate set made at London's Pinewood Studios. Some little detail or another will usually give it away for me when a movie production chooses to go this route, but I have to confess, The Descent
had me fooled. The incredibly well-crafted cave system made just for this film offers even more proof of the high level of care that went into every facet of it. That level of care extends to the unpredictable ending, too. After a false ending showing a lone survivor escaping the caves and scrabbling frantically for an automobile, we are thrust into the movie's true concluon, which is a bit harder to define as either "happy" or "sad". Rather, it is a complex ending in which a complex character is left with a complex choice. I've probably already given too much away about The Descent's emotional finale, so the only additional thing I'll say is that it adds great depth to the film.The Descent
is a more or less straightforward thriller about a struggle to survive that practically never lets its characters rest once it gets going. It's not the kind of movie that tosses in a bunch of twists and turns just for the hell of it, or to reaffirm its own cleverness over and over. It does indeed have some surprises in store, but they spring organically from the development of the characters, rather than being forced on the viewer whether they make any real sense or not. Other films before this one may have already blazed the trail it follows, but few are as action-packed or scary as The Descent and most mply don't feature leads as compulvely watchable as Shauna Macdonald and Natalie Mendoza, or monsters as fearsome as the Crawlers. It reminds me that there is always room for more ungimmicky creature features that just aim to take us on an intense, character-driven ride into the depths of hell. Stay tuned for my next installment!
sources:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0435625/fullcredits#cast
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Descent
This 2005 outing from writer/director Neil Marshall opens and closes with a bang, and is pretty much all action in the middle, too. There are a handful of quieter scenes dedicated strictly to character development in the early minutes of The Descent, but Marshall's eagerness to get down to the buness of pitting human against monster deep in the bowels of the earth is apparent from the get go. This is entirely a good thing, nce Marshall displays a deft ability to flesh his characters out even in the middle of their struggle to survive. Much is communicated through pregnant lences and meaningful expresons, not to mention the decive actions the characters take to defend themselves and each other. All of this makes The Descent a complex and impresve horror film which required the talents of actors, not just action stars .The film revolves around a group of young women who seem to all be in their mid 20's to early 30's. Most of them are longtime friends who take annual trips together. All x of the central characters have substantial parts, but the two undeniable leads are Sarah (Shauna Macdonald) and Juno (Natalie Mendoza). There is unresolved conflict between the two women involving the recent death of Sarah's husband and daughter. Beth (Alex Reid) also remains suspicious of Juno, obviously ding with Sarah in the unspoken drama. The group is rounded out by Rebecca (Saskia Mulder) and Sam (MyAnna Buring), sters who mostly manage to get along without bickering. This year, they are being joined for the first time by Holly (Nora-Jane Noone), a newer friend of Juno's who she invited along. Every year, the friends apparently undertake a different adventure chosen by a different person. This time around, Juno has decided to take everyone caving. What no one else except her initially realizes is that they're not actually going to the cave system they filed an expedition plan for. Juno is leading them instead to a new cave system which, as far as she knows, no one has ever explored before. This detail becomes important later on, when a cave in traps the women within undiscovered earthen chambers where no rescue team would have any reason to look for them. Of course, those circumstances alone are not bad enough for a horror film, so it turns out there is an undiscovered species of vaguely humanoid creature down there with them. Macdonald turns in a riveting performance as the grieving Sarah. Still haunted by nightmares about the accident that killed her family, her fragility is palpable, yet she also has a quiet resolve about her that becomes quite fierce at times. It is this quality which has allowed her to survive her grief and it is this quality which helps her do alright for herself against the beasties that live within the dark caverns. Mendoza holds her own as Juno, a real Type A personality who seems to be trying just a little hard to be genuine and has a history of deceit and betrayal. Juno's dere to put the past behind them and be a true friend to Sarah seems real, if perhaps a bit self-serving. It is in her nature to apologize to Sarah over and over, through words and grand gestures, just as it is in Sarah's more reserved nature to never explicitly say that she has forgiven Juno, even though she is not openly hostile towards her either. The dynamic between these two skilled actors is the heart of this film and it never fails to sustain the excitement. Even as they fight de by de against a virtual army of slimy, taloned creatures, the viewer can never be quite certain that one of them isn't about to betray the other. The other characters are in the hands of good actors, as well. Every ngle one of them comes across as a three-dimenonal human being and the group has good chemistry together as a whole. Each loss is felt whenever one of them falls victim to the subterranean horde. Alex Reid does stellar work in her character's final scenes, making Beth's demise one of the most shocking and heartbreaking moments of the movie.The creatures themselves are an absolute triumph of horror. Bleach white and hairless, with long, thin arms, razored hands, ratlike ears and blind, milky eyes, they look pretty much like an undiscovered species that evolved to hunt underground should, and like nothing any of us who live above ground would ever want to meet. Costume degner Nancy Thompson and The Descent's make up and effects team did some truly inspired work for the film. Not many original creations in horror get to join the pantheon of vampires, werewolves and zombies in the collective subconscious, but in my opinion, the creatures from The Descent deserve to. For the most part, they are just wild animals who see the women as food, although a couple scenes do hint that perhaps they have some form of social or family structure. Whatever their motives, they are shrieking, savage, unholy-looking terrors who have every advantage over the trapped and lost human cavers, especially as they sustain more and more injuries in their efforts to find freedom. Never given a name by the script itself, they are referred to as Crawlers on The Descent's page at imdb.com and I, for one, hope to see a lot more of them in the future. The set degners are worthy of special recognition, as well. The underground world of the Crawlers looks so authentic that I just assumed the movie was shot in an actual cave system. I was quite surprised to discover,via Wikipedia.com, that the actors were moving around an elaborate set made at London's Pinewood Studios. Some little detail or another will usually give it away for me when a movie production chooses to go this route, but I have to confess, The Descent
had me fooled. The incredibly well-crafted cave system made just for this film offers even more proof of the high level of care that went into every facet of it. That level of care extends to the unpredictable ending, too. After a false ending showing a lone survivor escaping the caves and scrabbling frantically for an automobile, we are thrust into the movie's true concluon, which is a bit harder to define as either "happy" or "sad". Rather, it is a complex ending in which a complex character is left with a complex choice. I've probably already given too much away about The Descent's emotional finale, so the only additional thing I'll say is that it adds great depth to the film.The Descent
is a more or less straightforward thriller about a struggle to survive that practically never lets its characters rest once it gets going. It's not the kind of movie that tosses in a bunch of twists and turns just for the hell of it, or to reaffirm its own cleverness over and over. It does indeed have some surprises in store, but they spring organically from the development of the characters, rather than being forced on the viewer whether they make any real sense or not. Other films before this one may have already blazed the trail it follows, but few are as action-packed or scary as The Descent and most mply don't feature leads as compulvely watchable as Shauna Macdonald and Natalie Mendoza, or monsters as fearsome as the Crawlers. It reminds me that there is always room for more ungimmicky creature features that just aim to take us on an intense, character-driven ride into the depths of hell. Stay tuned for my next installment!
sources:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0435625/fullcredits#cast
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Descent
ImmortalSidneyP
Thursday 7/05/2012 at 12:17 AM | 94371
I couldn't agree more.
This was a great movie.
This was a great movie.
malosuerte
Thursday 7/05/2012 at 03:34 AM | 94396
great article! (should be #1 ;)
zombie7666
Thursday 7/05/2012 at 12:03 PM | 94404
