Hey folks, Harry here with the latest word on THE DESCENT. Now - as sometimes happens - films can be over-shadowed by the events of their day. Neil Marshall's film opens in London & throughout the UK in the aftermath of true horror. In days like these, movies don't seem nearly the topic they regularly occupy in our lives - but dammit, to me, I refuse to allow the acts of madmen to quell my enthusiasm for my first love... film. It makes me proud to see folks in London braving the streets to see... well a highly anticipated horror film, the second film from a talent that with a micro-budget carved out a great first indie horror film out of DOG SOLDIERS. This time, he had more to play with and it seems he's made a film that has the lovers of spine-tingles and white-knuckles squealing with glee. But here... see for yourself...
Hi Harry,
You posted my review of Shaun of The Dead last year, so here's my 2 cents on the latest offering from Neil Marshall!
Now I personally loved Neil Marshall's last offering - Dog Soldiers, I thought it was one of the best comic horror movies I'd seen since American Werewolf in London, it had everything, blood, guts, scares, great comic timing - and it gave us (in my opinion) the most quotable marine type character since Bill Paxton's 'Hudson' from Aliens in 'Spoony' ("I ope I give you the sh*ts")
Going into 'The Descent', my expectations were so so, I'd heard great things about it - but how many times now has a promising director who nailed it on their first outing, gone and come up with a turd that wont flush for their 2nd feature. So.......how did he do????
Deep Breath
OH MY GOD!!! He only went and upstaged his first film by crafting the most tense film I have ever had the experience of seeing........not since Alien have I held my breath and gritted my teeth throughout a movie.
Ok - so here's the basic premise of the movie......... 6 ladies get together to go cave exploring (or whatever you call it?), but what they run into is a cave full of...............erm................I'm not sure, but there a nasty piece of work
The opening scene starts off with 3 of the girls white water rafting, and ends in a horrific accident............then we skip forward to a certain time in the future where the 6 ladies get together, we have the main character who's dealing with a loss in her life, her best friend (the calm one), we get 2 sisters (a student doctor & expert cave explorer), a wild child dare devil type, and a Chinese girl who is leading them on this adventure and in my book, she steals the show for me (she reminds me of young Lucy Lui).
There are dozens of things that I could praise about the film, but cant as I don't wish to spoil it for you all, but believe me when I say you will cringe (leg...bone...blood........self made splint....need I say more), and you will jump (the first time the WHOLE group encounters one of the creatures - oh my god, the girl behind me jumped up so high I swear she landed on the row in front of me. Even myself who doesn't scare too easily........well I will admit that I jumped at least 5 times, and judging by the audience I saw it with, i'm thankfully not the only one.
So.............are the any bad things to the movie I can hear you asking. Well............hmmmm from my opinion - no...not a one, but I suppose there will be people out there that might have trouble with the ending. But for me, I can honestly say that this is the most tense and frightening films I have seen for some time now. I only thank the lord that its a British film and we get it now rather than later.
If you us this then call me G-Man
Then there is this one...
Hey Harry,
Ok I just got round to writing this review of Neil Marshall's new horror film. Boy, it's a doozy.
I have a friend who works for a UK film mag (not the one you guys are thinking of). Anyway he called me up and said I could get to a screening as someone pulled out.
Now I am a massive fan of Dog Soldiers. I saw that film on it's opening night and was really blown away by it's audacity and great sense of fun. Hell even Sean Pertwee was good.
I'd heard about this film from Marshall's monthly column in TF and have been looking forward to another fun, boisterous romp with mutant cave dwellers.
I WAS WRONG
This film isnt fun or boisterous. It's harsh, disturbing and above all brutal. Really brutal. It's a survival horror film like Dog Soldiers, but this is the evil mirror universe version.
We start off with a big shock (that I wont ruin) that sets a grim, dark tone for the rest of the film. After this one shock Marshall slows the pace down and takes us off to the Appalachian Mountains with a nice Shining style credit sequence.
The film takes it's time to set up characters, relationships and also gives us a tease, character-wise, as to what to expect when we get underground. When the creatures do appear the brutality and fear never stops. Thers are so many great touches in the movie, great slo-mo which doesn't feel cliche, wonderful tracking shots that ramp up that nervy twitching fear for the audience. We really feel for the characters. The deaths are sometimes quick, sometimes horrifying but all of them hit you hard in the gut.
The best things about this film are the super creey atmosphere that pervades everything before the descent and the pure primal horror afterwards. And nothing is better than seeing these girls start getting there own back.
Best of all, for me at least, was the knowledge that Marshall has made a hardcore, pure, big balled horror film, not some lame ass teens in terror flick. Put this film with Haute Tension (ending aside) for gore and suspense and a real return to 70's style horror.
Tony(liberal pussy)Wilson
