The Descent

For the book by Jeff Long, see The Descent (novel). For other uses, see Descent.

The Descent
Original British quad poster
Directed by	Neil Marshall
Written by	Neil Marshall
Produced by	Christian Colson
Starring	Shauna Macdonald Natalie Mendoza Alex Reid Saskia Mulder MyAnna Buring Nora-Jane Noone
Cinematography	Sam McCurdy
Edited by	Jon Harris
Music by	David Julyan
Distributed by	Pathé (UK) Lionsgate (US)
Release dates	8 July 2005 (UK) 4 August 2006 (US)
Running time	99 min.
Country	United Kingdom
Language	English
Budget	£3,500,000
Box office	$57,029,609

The Descent is a 2005 British horror film written and directed by Neil Marshall. The film follows a group of women who embark on a caving expedition and become trapped underground. When a group of creatures begin attacking the women, they struggle to survive and escape the cave. After the success of his 2002 film Dog Soldiers, Marshall rejected numerous requests to direct other horror films, wary of being typecast as a horror film director. The director eventually accepted to produce The Descent as he believed it was very different from his previous film. Defying convention, Marshall decided to cast only women in the main roles, going against the original plan for a gender diverse cast.

Filming took place in the United Kingdom; exterior scenes were filmed in Scotland, and interior scenes were filmed in sets built at Pinewood Studios near London. The cave featured in the film was built at Pinewood because filmmakers considered it too dangerous and time-consuming to shoot in an actual cave. The Descent commercially opened in the United Kingdom on 8 July 2005 and later opened in the United States on 4 August 2006. The film was well received by critics, earning an 85% overall approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes.

Plot

Juno (Natalie Mendoza), Sarah (Shauna Macdonald) and Beth (Alex Reid) are whitewater rafting in Scotland. Sarah's husband Paul (Oliver Milburn) and their daughter Jessica (Molly Kayll) wave and cheer from the bank. On the drive home, a distracted Paul allows their car to drift into the path of an oncoming vehicle, causing a head-on collision. Paul and Jessica are killed instantly, but Sarah survives. One year later, Juno, Sarah, Beth, Sam (MyAnna Buring) and Rebecca (Saskia Mulder) are reunited at a rustic cabin in the Appalachian Mountains, USA. Holly (Nora-Jane Noone), Juno's new friend, is introduced. As they reminisce over an old photo of Juno, Sarah, and Beth, Sarah says "Love each day.", explaining that it was a saying of her late husband's. The next morning the group goes spelunking. When the group breaks for lunch in a huge gallery, Juno tearfully apologizes to Sarah for not being around for her after the accident, but Sarah is distant. The next passage collapses behind the group and Sarah barely makes it through. After a heated discussion, Juno admits that she has led them into an unknown cave system, instead of the fully explored cave system they had originally planned for. The only people told about their expedition think they are at the other cave system, making rescue impossible. They are trapped with no way out. Privately, Juno tells Sarah that she led them into the unknown cave hoping to restore their relationship, but Sarah rebuffs her. Pressing on, they discover a cave painting, which Beth interprets as signifying that there are two exits to the cave, giving them some hope.

Holly falls down a hole and breaks her leg. Sam sets Holly’s fracture with a splint and they carry her along. As the others help Holly, Sarah wanders off and observes a pale, humanoid creature drinking at a pool. It scampers off into the darkness when Sarah gasps. The others think Sarah imagined it, but Sarah insists that she saw someone. Soon after they are attacked by one of the creatures, which are called crawlers. The group scatters and the crawler kills Holly. Sarah trips and falls and passes out. Juno is attacked from behind by a crawler, but manages to kill it. Immediately after, Beth approaches Juno from behind. Startled, Juno whirls around and stabs Beth through the neck with her pickaxe. Beth grabs Juno’s pendant as she falls. Juno stumbles away even as Beth reaches out to her. Juno eventually locates Sam and Rebecca and rescues them from a crawler. Juno tells them she may have found a way out, but will not leave without Sarah. The others reluctantly agree to help her search. Meanwhile, Sarah awakens and encounters the mortally wounded Beth, who tells Sarah that Juno wounded her and left her. Sarah does not believe her until Beth gives her Juno’s pendant, which is inscribed with the words "love each day". Sarah immediately recognizes the pendant as Juno’s. Beth, in extreme pain, asks Sarah to kill her, and Sarah reluctantly complies. Sarah soon encounters and kills a young crawler, its mother and a male crawler. Elsewhere, Juno, Sam and Rebecca are pursued by a large group of crawlers. Crawlers kill Sam and Rebecca, and Juno leaps into a chasm to escape.

Juno climbs out of the chasm and is helped onto a ledge by Sarah. Sarah asks Juno if she saw Beth die, and Juno nods. The two cautiously make their way through passages until they encounter a group of crawlers and defeat them. Sarah then faces Juno, and reveals that she has Juno’s pendant. Then Sarah swings the pickaxe at Juno. Juno makes no effort to avoid Sarah’s attack and is impaled through the leg. Juno pulls the pickaxe free and turns to face a large group of crawlers. As Sarah flees, she hears Juno’s screams, which abruptly fall silent. Sarah falls down a hole and is knocked unconscious. Sarah awakens, scrambles up a huge pile of bones towards daylight, squeezes through a narrow opening onto the surface, runs to her vehicle and speeds off. Suddenly, Sarah sees Juno sitting next to her, her face streaked with blood. Sarah screams and awakens to find herself still in the cavern. She sees her smiling daughter close by and a birthday cake between them. The field of view widens to reveal that Sarah is hallucinating. The calls of the crawlers grow louder, but Sarah is oblivious.

Production

When Neil Marshall's 2002 film Dog Soldiers was a success, the director received numerous requests to direct other horror films. The director was initially wary of being typecast as a horror film director, though he eventually agreed to make The Descent, emphasizing, "They are very different films."

Casting

Filmmakers originally planned for the cast to be both male and female, but Neil Marshall's business partner realized that horror films almost never have all-female casts. Defying convention, Marshall cast all women into the role, and to avoid making them clichéd, he retrieved basic advice from his female friends. He explained the difference, "The women discuss how they feel about the situation, which the soldiers in Dog Soldiers would never have done." He also gave the characters different accents to enable the audience to tell the difference between the women and to establish a more "cosmopolitan feel" than the British marketing of Dog Soldiers.

The cast included Shauna Macdonald as Sarah, Natalie Mendoza as Juno, Alex Reid as Beth, Saskia Mulder as Rebecca, MyAnna Buring as Sam, Nora-Jane Noone as Holly, Oliver Milburn as Paul, and Molly Kayll as Jessica. Craig Conway portrayed one of the film's crawlers, Scar.

Filming

While The Descent was set in North America, the film was shot entirely in the United Kingdom. Exterior scenes were filmed in Scotland, and interior scenes were filmed in sets built at Pinewood Studios near London. The cave was built at Pinewood because filmmakers considered it too dangerous and time-consuming to shoot in an actual cave. Set pieces were reused with care, and filmmakers sought to limit lighting to the sources that the characters bring with them into the cave, such as the helmet lights.

Marshall cited the 1970s films The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, The Exorcist, and Deliverance as influences in establishing tension in The Descent. The director elaborated, "We really wanted to ramp up the tension slowly, unlike all the American horror films you see now. They take it up to 11 in the first few minutes and then simply can't keep it up. We wanted to show all these terrible things in the cave: dark, drowning, claustrophobia. Then, when it couldn't get any worse, make it worse."

Production of The Descent was in competition with an American film of a similar premise, The Cave. The Descent was originally scheduled to be released in the United Kingdom by November 2005 or February 2006, but The Cave began filming six months before its competitor. Filmmakers of The Descent decided to release the film before The Cave, so they fast-tracked production to be completed by the end of February 2005.

Creature design

In the film, the women encounter underground creatures called crawlers. Marshall described the crawlers as cavemen who have stayed underground. The director explained, "They've evolved in this environment over thousands of years. They've adapted perfectly to thrive in the cave. They've lost their eyesight, they have acute hearing and smell and function perfectly in the pitch black. They're expert climbers, so they can go up any rock face and that is their world." Filmmakers kept the crawler design hidden from the actresses until they were revealed in the scenes in which the characters encountered the creatures.

Editing

The Descent was released in North America with approximately a minute cut from the end. Sarah escapes from the cave and sees Juno, but the film does not cut back to the cave.

In the August 4, 2006 issue of Entertainment Weekly, it was stated that the ending was trimmed because American viewers didn't like its "uber-hopeless finale". Lionsgate marketing chief Tim Palen said, "It's a visceral ride, and by the time you get to the ending you're drained. [Director Neil] Marshall had a number of endings in mind when he shot the film, so he was open [to making a switch]." Marshall compared the change to the ending of The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, saying, "Just because she gets away, does that make it a happy ending?"

The North American Unrated DVD includes the original ending. Recently, the film has been airing on Canada's The Movie Network, which has the original ending.

Marketing

The skull of women motif used in some advertising material is based on Philippe Halsman's In Voluptas Mors photograph.

The film's marketing campaign in the United Kingdom was disrupted by the London bombings in July 2005. Advertisements on London's public transport system (including the bus which blew up) had included posters that carried the quote, "Outright terror... bold and brilliant," and depicted a terrified woman screaming in a tunnel. The film's theatrical distributor in the UK, Pathé, recalled the posters from their placement in the London Underground and reworked the campaign to exclude the word "terror" from advertised reviews of The Descent. Pathé also distributed the new versions to TV and radio stations. The distributor's marketing chief, Anna Butler, said of the new approach, "We changed tack to concentrate on the women involved all standing together and fighting back. That seemed to chime with the prevailing mood of defiance that set in the weekend after the bombs."

An example of the poster can be seen here. Neil Marshall stated in a review "Shauna was pretty upset about it; it was on newspapers all across the county" and cites the attacks as harming the film's box office, as "people were still trapped underground in reality, so no one really wanted to go see a film about people trapped underground..."

Many commentators, including writers for Variety and The Times, remarked on the rather unfortunate coincidence.

Due to these events there was some initial concern that the film's release might have been delayed out of sensitivity for the tragedy but Pathé ultimately chose to release the film on schedule with a slightly retooled advertising campaign; However, the US promotional campaign managed by Lionsgate Films was significantly different from the original European version.

Reception

...When it was released in July [2005], this claustrophobic story of six women who stumble across something nasty on a caving trip got arguably the best reviews of any Brit pic this year.

— Variety columnist Adam Dawtrey

The Descent premiered at the Scottish horror film festival Dead by Dawn on 6 July 2005. The film commercially opened on 329 screens in the UK and received limited releases in other European countries, eventually earning more than £6 million in box office receipts. The London bombings in the same month was reported to have affected the box office performance of The Descent.

Based on 156 reviews collected by Rotten Tomatoes, The Descent received an 85% overall approval rating; the film had a lower approval rating with the 27 critics in Rotten Tomatoes' "Cream of the Crop", which consists of popular and notable critics from the top newspapers, websites, television and radio program, receiving a 70% approval rating. By comparison, Metacritic calculated an average score of 71 out of 100 from the 30 reviews it collected. On its debut weekend in the US, The Descent opened with a three-day gross of $8.8 million, and finished with $26,005,908. Total worldwide box office receipts are $57,029,609.

Alex Kasriel of This Is Local London wrote that the cast and the filmmaking techniques used conveyed a sense of terror very well. Kasriel noted, "Marshall has effectively adapted the classic horror film blueprint, making it fresh, palpable and scary. Sure, it is knowing and self-referrential, but the number of shock moments will get your clinging on to your seat."

Roger Ebert's editor, Jim Emerson, reviewed the film for Ebert's column when Ebert went out for surgery. He gave the film four out of four stars. He wrote, "This is the fresh, exciting summer movie I've been wanting for months. Or for years, it seems."

Manohla Dargis of The New York Times described The Descent as "one of the better horror entertainments of the last few years", calling it "indisputably and pleasurably nerve-jangling". Dargis applauded the claustrophobic atmosphere of the film, though she perceived sexual overtones in the all-female cast with their labored breathing and sweaty clothing. Rene Rodriguez of The Miami Herald thought that the film devolved into a guessing game of who would survive, though he praised Marshall's "nightmare imagery" for generating scares that work better than other horror films. Rodriguez also noted the attempt to add dimension to the female characters but felt that the actresses were unable to perform.

Sequel

Main article: The Descent 2

A sequel to The Descent was filmed at Ealing Studios in London during 2008. It is due for release in May 2009 in the UK.

External links

• Official site
• The Descent at IMDb
• The Descent at AllMovie
• The Descent at Box Office Mojo
• The Descent at Rotten Tomatoes
• The Descent at Metacritic
• Watch The Descent Now