The Descent (2005)
Directed by Neil Marshall
After a personal tragedy, Sarah joins her friends on a caving expedition in the Appalachian Mountains. But when a rockfall traps them deep underground, their adventure turns into a nightmare. As they search for a way out, the group discovers they are not alone—lurking in the darkness are savage, cave-dwelling creatures. With rising tension and dwindling trust, the women must fight to survive against both the predators and each other.
36 connections found
View:
36 films that influenced The Descent
What critics say influenced The Descent
Maybe that's why, at the climactic moment when a bloodied arm reaches up through the weedy ground for the light of day, Marshall himself seems a tad overwrought — cancelling his account with Deliverance and taking on a whole new debt to Carrie.
This is also when the filmic allusions start piling up into their own sort of zombie brigade: scare quotes, if you like, from Don't Look Now, Carrie, Apocalypse Now, The Blair Witch Project, the Gollum sequences in The Lord of the Rings, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, the original Alien, and in one sudden flash-reveal of a whole brigade of crouching monsters, a direct lift from Aliens.
They include explicit allusions (in addition to the movies already mentioned above) to " Picnic at Hanging Rock ," " Carrie ," “ 2001: A Space Odyssey ,” " The Third Man ," "The Fourth Man," " Don't Look Now ," " The Blair Witch Project " " Vertigo ," " Apocalypse Now "... and plenty more.
Until an overwrought finish out of Carrie, Marshall keeps you guessing with nightmare-making skill.
The final sections of The Descent which manage to evoke Ridley Scott's Alien (1979), Brian De Palma's Carrie (1976), Francis Ford Coppola's Apocalypse Now (1979) and even Rob Zombie's House of 1000 Corpses (2003) are bloody, brutal and tense.
Buckets of blood are spilled, including one memorable image that pays loving homage to the final scene of Carrie.
Bodies and cave-scaling implements drop with loud cracks; portentous music telegraphs just about every surprise coming; the sightless goo-covered "crawlers" who live in the cave recesses (but who occasionally go topside to hunt) drop abruptly, with "Alien"-like grace, into the camera frame.
That general synopsis will probably sound like a very generic horror movie premise, and though director Neil ("Dog Soldiers") Marshall's influences are somewhat obvious, but veering more towards thrillers like "Deliverance" and "Alien" than out-and-out horror movies.
This is also when the filmic allusions start piling up into their own sort of zombie brigade: scare quotes, if you like, from Don't Look Now, Carrie, Apocalypse Now, The Blair Witch Project, the Gollum sequences in The Lord of the Rings, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, the original Alien, and in one sudden flash-reveal of a whole brigade of crouching monsters, a direct lift from Aliens.
But the best way to illustrate the smashing success of The Descent may not be to compare it to a classic like Alien -- though this movie surely will earn a spot in the pantheon next to it -- but to last summer’s very similar, if desperately unscary, The Cave .
There have been a lot of comparisons to "Alien", but "Descent" is more like "Jaws" in a cave.
The final sections of The Descent which manage to evoke Ridley Scott's Alien (1979), Brian De Palma's Carrie (1976), Francis Ford Coppola's Apocalypse Now (1979) and even Rob Zombie's House of 1000 Corpses (2003) are bloody, brutal and tense.
The denouement is pretty clear when survivor Sarah bubbles, head first, out of a pool of glop in much the same way a possessed Martin Sheen bobbed to the river surface before slaying Brando in "Apocalypse Now."
The final sections of The Descent which manage to evoke Ridley Scott's Alien (1979), Brian De Palma's Carrie (1976), Francis Ford Coppola's Apocalypse Now (1979) and even Rob Zombie's House of 1000 Corpses (2003) are bloody, brutal and tense.
This is also when the filmic allusions start piling up into their own sort of zombie brigade: scare quotes, if you like, from Don't Look Now, Carrie, Apocalypse Now, The Blair Witch Project, the Gollum sequences in The Lord of the Rings, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, the original Alien, and in one sudden flash-reveal of a whole brigade of crouching monsters, a direct lift from Aliens.
They include explicit allusions (in addition to the movies already mentioned above) to " Picnic at Hanging Rock ," " Carrie ," “ 2001: A Space Odyssey ,” " The Third Man ," "The Fourth Man," " Don't Look Now ," " The Blair Witch Project " " Vertigo ," " Apocalypse Now "... and plenty more.
Marshall is also an astute 'borrower' of other films, from the piton clipping suspense of "Cliffhanger," to the video camera revelations of "The Blair Witch Project" to a combined "Carrie"/"Apocalypse Now" moment that wows with its audacity.
Along with some rather pleasing homages to classic movies (including, as far as this reviewer could spot, Apocalypse Now and Carrie) The Descent boasts fantastic action scenes, nail biting horror, impressive acting and a couple of darkly comic moments that ever-so-slightly ease the almost unbearable tension.
This is also when the filmic allusions start piling up into their own sort of zombie brigade: scare quotes, if you like, from Don't Look Now, Carrie, Apocalypse Now, The Blair Witch Project, the Gollum sequences in The Lord of the Rings, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, the original Alien, and in one sudden flash-reveal of a whole brigade of crouching monsters, a direct lift from Aliens.
The material provided here is paper thin: After a tragic prologue lifted from the screenplay structures of "The Changeling" "Don't Look Now" and "Dead Calm", "The Descent" settles into it's main narrative of six young ladies who decide to reclaim a sense of youthful danger in their responsible adult lives by going on a caving expedition in the Appalachian mountains.
They include explicit allusions (in addition to the movies already mentioned above) to " Picnic at Hanging Rock ," " Carrie ," “ 2001: A Space Odyssey ,” " The Third Man ," "The Fourth Man," " Don't Look Now ," " The Blair Witch Project " " Vertigo ," " Apocalypse Now "... and plenty more.
I'd replace The Shining with Nicholas Roeg's Don't Look Now, however, in that there's a suggestion throughout that the ghost of Sarah's child is trying to warn her.
Advertisement
The material provided here is paper thin: After a tragic prologue lifted from the screenplay structures of "The Changeling" "Don't Look Now" and "Dead Calm", "The Descent" settles into it's main narrative of six young ladies who decide to reclaim a sense of youthful danger in their responsible adult lives by going on a caving expedition in the Appalachian mountains.
All right, so I never figured out exactly where all the copper pipes came from (an itinerant plumber maybe?), but the scene is quick, nasty and manages to evoke both Peter Medak's The Changeling (1980) and Paul Verhoeven's The Fourth Man (1983).
(Along with "Alien" and "The Blair Witch Project," the film has a definite "Deliverance" vibe.)
That general synopsis will probably sound like a very generic horror movie premise, and though director Neil ("Dog Soldiers") Marshall's influences are somewhat obvious, but veering more towards thrillers like "Deliverance" and "Alien" than out-and-out horror movies.
The trek into the wilderness to highlight their isolation, the discovery of the animal carcass to bring home the idea that these people of modernity are about to be reintroduced to their mortal animalism...every time-honoured and weather-beaten convention is paid proper obeisance by genre-loving Marshall, who has, in fact, name-checked Deliverance, Alien , and The Shining as prime inspirations/sources for this film, which is honest of him and mostly accurate.
And just as films like Deliverance explored the darkest corners of masculinity, so does The Descent deliver a sobering but intense treatise on female identity.
Its British writer-director Neil Marshall appeared at Lincoln Center's Film Comment Selects pre-release showing for a Q&A about his ?Deliverance goes underground.?
Much of the fun comes from seeing Marshall's clever little send ups to horror films of the past including Carrie, the Alien films, and even Deliverance.
This is also when the filmic allusions start piling up into their own sort of zombie brigade: scare quotes, if you like, from Don't Look Now, Carrie, Apocalypse Now, The Blair Witch Project, the Gollum sequences in The Lord of the Rings, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, the original Alien, and in one sudden flash-reveal of a whole brigade of crouching monsters, a direct lift from Aliens.
For more recent echoings, go to The Time Machine , Alien , First Blood, The Blair Witch Project , Pitch Black and Buffy the Vampire Slayer, for starters.
They include explicit allusions (in addition to the movies already mentioned above) to " Picnic at Hanging Rock ," " Carrie ," “ 2001: A Space Odyssey ,” " The Third Man ," "The Fourth Man," " Don't Look Now ," " The Blair Witch Project " " Vertigo ," " Apocalypse Now "... and plenty more.
The shocks occasionally stray into the derivative -- elements of The Blair Witch Project hang uncomfortably in the air, and a few clichés mar the proceedings every now and then -- but they never run out of steam, and you rarely see them coming before they hit you full in the face.
Only two films in the past few years accomplished this feat: The Blair Witch Project and Gore Verbinski's remake of the Japanese horror film, The Ring.
Marshall is also an astute 'borrower' of other films, from the piton clipping suspense of "Cliffhanger," to the video camera revelations of "The Blair Witch Project" to a combined "Carrie"/"Apocalypse Now" moment that wows with its audacity.
This is also when the filmic allusions start piling up into their own sort of zombie brigade: scare quotes, if you like, from Don't Look Now, Carrie, Apocalypse Now, The Blair Witch Project, the Gollum sequences in The Lord of the Rings, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, the original Alien, and in one sudden flash-reveal of a whole brigade of crouching monsters, a direct lift from Aliens.
Not since Aliens have the two genres fit so seamlessly, if on a much smaller scale here.
“The Descent” is one of the creepiest movies you’re going to see this year or any other, a suspenseful, claustrophobic horror flick that is like a hellish melding of “Aliens” with “ The Hills Have Eyes .”
With shades of Aliens� Ripley, freckled-faced blond Sarah (Shauna Macdonald), still grieving from a horrific personal tragedy, metamorphoses into an avenging killing machine.
Advertisement
Does Marshall intentionally herald this by evoking Kubrick's The Shining (1980) at the start of this section?
The trek into the wilderness to highlight their isolation, the discovery of the animal carcass to bring home the idea that these people of modernity are about to be reintroduced to their mortal animalism...every time-honoured and weather-beaten convention is paid proper obeisance by genre-loving Marshall, who has, in fact, name-checked Deliverance, Alien , and The Shining as prime inspirations/sources for this film, which is honest of him and mostly accurate.
Utilizing the strategy of gradual conflict building, it recalls the meditative nature of “Alien” while marrying it with the careful mental disintegration of “The Shining.”
Of course, if you put it up against Open Water (2003), Cabin Fever (2002), High Tension (2003) and Wolf Creek (2005) this becomes a work of pure genius.
The first half of this late-summer Lionsgate release follows the company�s 2004 psychological thriller Open Water.
Fans of Saw and The Cave will likely find it more gripping than those movies, but it doesn't match the subtle horrors of 2003's Open Water.