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Warning to Narshty: Here comes another gushing comment from Michael so brace yourself or surf elsewhere.

Excellent reviews popping up everywhere, I was prepared to be devoured by The Descent which opened here in the US yesterday. Holy fuck!

I've grown so exhausted of todays endless spewing of horror remakes with children with mommy issues, sadistic redneck killers and ghosts..so much now that I'm embarrassed for praising High Tension once last year.

The Descent is a refreshing horror film for taking a different detour.. or in other words, awakening the long buried, old-fashioned "haunted house" formula - with monsters! I'm so glad that I can actually be scared in the theater again. I thought I'd become immune. I nearly shat in my drawers in several scenes and the audience around me freeeaaked out!

I just learned that Lion Gates altered the ending. WHY?!

To see the UK/European ending:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6wP7zx8ecqY

which is so much superior. Not only it makes more sense and completes the full circle, it's also brilliantly nihilistic and poetic.

Go see The Descent if you haven't already.

Michael wrote:I nearly shat in my drawers in several scenes and the audience around me freeeaaked out!

Michael, I'd be freaking out too if you were shitting your pants next to me in a theater Sorry, I couldn't help it.

I got some free passes, and my wife likes the horror stuff, so I went and it was one of the finest scary movies I've seen. Very well done. I was very impressed.

I must have seen another movie. The one I saw was not scary, not gory, not suspenseful. The characterizations and backstory were lazy, and every last character was unlikeable. The editing was incomprehensible. Various shots were ripped off from much better movies (The Shining, Apocalypse Now, Carrie, to name but a few) for no reason at all other than to prove to the audience that the director has seen those movies. Every haunted house cliche was trotted out - Whoozat? A monster? No, it's just my friend sneaking up behind me! Whazzat? Looks like this passageway is all clea...BOO! Ah, safe at last OH SPOKE TOO SOON!

And worst of all, it was just boring. Because you know what's not scary? This is not scary.

matt wrote:I must have seen another movie.

Could it have been the American one The Cave that very strangely came out around the same time last year as The Descent did in the UK? It's A Bug's Life/Antz, Armageddon/Deep Impact, Volcano/Dante's Peak all over again!

Wow Matt, that's a very cynical response! What you saw as rip-offs of Carrie or Apocalypse Now, I saw as clever homages. I found The Descent suspenseful, frightening, and, at times, incredibly exciting. I will give you that the characters are all rather thinly sketched, but this is a horror movie, not a Fassbinder character study. What did get on my nerves were the excessive cheap scares in the first act, but I think that's easily forgivable. I'm just glad that there's been three good horror films released this year: Hostel, The Hills Have Eyes, and The Descent. I'll have to check out Marshall's previous film Dog Soldiers since I've heard good things.

Spoiler

And after seeing that UK ending I found one of the poster's theories on youtube pretty interesting. That is, that the girl who lost her family actually went insane in the cave, hallucinated that there were monsters, and proceeded to kill off all her friends. Farfetched yes, but an interesting possibility.

I'm all for directors stealing shots from other movies... if they have a reason for doing so, even if its purely satirical. To do it with no context (not even in the sense of relating it to the preceding and following shots) is just lazy and pointless. Anyway, it's not something exclusive to this filmmaker - every hack does it these days.

Maybe I've just seen too many horror films (good and bad) to be able to appreciate this one. I wanted to like it, otherwise I wouldn't have paid money to see it on opening weekend. Now I wish I'd just gone to see Miami Vice again.

Roger_Thornhill wrote:I'll have to check out Marshall's previous film Dog Soldiers since I've heard good things.

It's quite good. Lots of good scares and action with a solid cast. After seeing it, I am really curious to see The Descent.

Various shots were ripped off from much better movies (The Shining, Apocalypse Now, Carrie, to name but a few) for no reason at all other than to prove to the audience that the director has seen those movies.

Those shots didn't bother me a bit. The Shining = The long overhead shots of a car on winding roads through the forest. That type of shots can also been found in The Ring. Carrie = The hand popping up through the ground. One of the women drenched in blood, looking eerily like Sissy Spacek. Apocalypse Now = I can't recall any shots because it's been so long since I saw this film.

Every haunted house cliche was trotted out - Whoozat? A monster? No, it's just my friend sneaking up behind me! Whazzat? Looks like this passageway is all clea...BOO! Ah, safe at last OH SPOKE TOO SOON!

Not a bad thing to me. I love haunted houses and monsters. It's been ages since we had a FUN (and well made) horror film like The Descent. Unlike the recent tidal wave of horror movies - The Texas Chainsaw Massacre remake, High Tension, Wolf Creek, The Grudge, Hide and Seek, White Noise...all terrible and bleached of the FUN that soaks up The Descent. Looking back at every horror movie that I've seen since the 70s, it's of my opinion that The Descent feels like a 70s horror movie the most of them all. It has this wonderful low-budget feeling to it and the cast is all female - almost unheard of for a horror movie since that era. And the lighting relies on colors - greens, reds, whites - to signify different wombs of the cave.. that kind of thing you used to see a lot in 70s horror movies.

I've given up on hoping to see a completely original horror movie. Is there one that I missed? The Blair Witch Project is kind of original, isn't it?

The last really great, intellectual horror movie that I've seen is Kurosawa's Pulse.

The Descent is great fun, escapist horror. It's a solid thriller and a terrific horror experience. Just perfect for steamy summer afternoons.

And I'm really looking forward to seeing Bong's The Host which looks like it's a phenomenal monster movie.

Interview with the film's director: http://www.filmmakermagazine.com/summer ... eneath.php

matt wrote:Maybe I've just seen too many horror films (good and bad) to be able to appreciate this one. I wanted to like it, otherwise I wouldn't have paid money to see it on opening weekend. Now I wish I'd just gone to see Miami Vice again.

Yeah I know how you feel, the horror genre tends to disappoint more often than it should. Perhaps I'm just desparate to find horror movies these days that are at least marginally decent. I wonder how The Descent is upon second viewing?

And do see Miami Vice again, the second time I saw it made me appreciate it even more.

I don't know, but what motivated you to say that Hills Have Eyes was worth anything. I had to turn that off.

I wonder how The Descent is upon second viewing?

Probably not much. I don't plan on seeing it again. The Descent is good enough for one viewing and revisiting it would be like walking through the same haunted house again .. no longer as fun as the first walk through since you'd be already acquainted with every "boo". I could be wrong about this but The Decadent doesn't have the depth or resonance of horror movies such as The Exorcist, The Shining and Carnival of Souls that keep drawing me back to seeing them year after year. However don't let this refrain some of you from seeing it. You simply must see it in a theater just for sheer fun.

blindside8zao wrote:I don't know, but what motivated you to say that Hills Have Eyes was worth anything. I had to turn that off.

What motivated me? Jesus of course.

Seriously...for one thing I'm not a fan of the original and found Aja's version an improvement on the original. Have you seen the original The Hills Have Eyes? It's probably one of the most overrated horror films of the 70s, much like Wes Craven is in general. So I was more than happy to see that Aja got rid of the Craven cheese and turned it into a incredibly graphic piece of survival horror. I'm not saying it's a masterpiece but I thought it was pretty good and leagues ahead of the lame PG-13 J-horror remakes Hollywood has been churning out lately.

Michael wrote:

I wonder how The Descent is upon second viewing?

Probably not much. I don't plan on seeing it again.

I didn't think it would, but it actually works a lot better second time around. The gimmicky mimicry doesn't register so much (except the musical cue ripped from The Thing!) and consequently the main two characters seem to open up a little more.

On first viewing Juno is ostensibly the villain and Sarah the hero. On second viewing Juno appeared to me to much more sympathetic, while Sarah's fate seems inevitable.

It is also worth watching with the original ending (which is quite wonderful) in place. I know you can see it on youtube, but that doesn't capture Marshall's pacing.

The original ending is certainly better.

I liked this flick, but the first and last thirds were very rote. The setup in the first third was useless and comes straight from Horror Flix 101. And you know EXACTLY how many, and who, will survive (although the original ending arguably changes that).

I thought the crawlers were lame. I kept thinking that Gollum and an Orc must have gotten it on to produce this lot. They often looked very CGI even though maybe they weren't. But the worst thing is their behavior made ZERO sense. They go outside to hunt yet are totally blind. They have a keen sense of hearing yet only hear the chicks when the director wants them to hear something. They appear to have NO sense of smell.

Anyway, this movie will be useless on DVD so be sure to see it in a theatre while you can.

I didn't think it would, but it actually works a lot better second time around.

Interesting. I will give it another shot when it comes out on DVD - with the original ending.

But the worst thing is their behavior made ZERO sense. They go outside to hunt yet are totally blind. They have a keen sense of hearing yet only hear the chicks when the director wants them to hear something. They appear to have NO sense of smell.

You mean how they got the animals to feast on? I wondered about that. Maybe the animals accidentally fell through the big hole and the creatures came over them. Sometimes it's best to make no sense about monsters... that is only if a director doesn't us to identify with them at all.

Anyway, this movie will be useless on DVD so be sure to see it in a theatre while you can.

Absolutely. The Descent is the perfect fun movie to watch in a theater.. all the fun will be lost in a living room.

I'm happy to see that there are many fans of the original ending. I can't figure out why Lion Gates moved to alter the ending.

I think at one point in the movie one of the chicks said the crawlers went outside to hunt and dragged the animals back in. Who knows?

Supposedly the director said he changed the ending because people were "thinking too much" about the original ending.

I think at one point in the movie one of the chicks said the crawlers went outside to hunt and dragged the animals back in. Who knows?

I don't remember this. Maybe she just assumed. How would she know about the crawlers dragging the animals in from outside if all the chicks were lost inside the cave the whole movie?

Supposedly the director said he changed the ending because people were "thinking too much" about the original ending.

I looked everywhere on the net for that kind of source but I couldn't find it. Help!

Barmy wrote:I think at one point in the movie one of the chicks said the crawlers went outside to hunt and dragged the animals back in. Who knows?

I distinctly remember rolling my eyes at this. Because I was wondering where all of those bones came from if the Batfamily had to survive only off of idiot spelunkers unlucky enough to get trapped in their cave.

Plus there was the mutliated moose outside the first entrance.

Ah the dead moose! I forgot about that.

Back to the ending. The director actually preferred the British ending.

From scifi.com:

Descent End Altered In U.S.

Neil Marshall, director of the upcoming SF horror film The Descent, told SCI FI Wire that the film's ending was altered for U.S. audiences from its original U.K. release to make it a bit more upbeat. "The ending that I had when I originally wrote it has been playing in Britain nearly a year now, and they seem to like it just fine," Marshall said in an interview after a screening of the film in Los Angeles last week. "But I had the chance to shoot another ending, so I did, and I think that's fine, too."

The Descent centers on a group of thrill-seeking women who go spelunking in a previously uncharted cave. While inside, they discover some opaque-skinned batlike human-shaped creatures who prey on flesh. When Lionsgate tested the film, the unrelenting dark U.K. ending seemed to irritate Americans, so it was changed. Marshall had time to do it because the release was delayed in the U.S. to avoid the similarly themed The Cave, which was coming out about the same time.

"We had the time to do it, and it gives me as a filmmaker that rare opportunity to have two endings," Marshall said with a laugh. "We never tested both endings with both British and American audiences, so I can't say if one group liked one over the other, but it seems like the American audiences will like the one we're releasing here."

The Descent opens Aug. 4 and stars Shauna Macdonald, Alex Reid and Natalie Mendoza. Which ending does the London-based director prefer? "I prefer the British version," he admitted. The Descent opens wide on Aug. 4.

Why didn't the crawlers eat the moose?

Also remember that bloody paw print right near the big ass entrance. Clearly those albino dudes went outside from time to time.

The new ending is a better set up for a sequel. "Crawlers on a Plane"?

From another message board:

After festival screenings director Neil Marshall decided to cut the final shot from the film because he noticed people were only talking about what the final shot meant instead of the entire movie experience. He said in an interview something to the effect that he was unhappy with the ending and thought it was not necessary and decided to cut it.

Barmy wrote:Why didn't the crawlers eat the moose?

Because they needed to leave it as a SPOOKY and OMINOUS warning to the audience. Duh!

EDIT: I'm sad I couldn't use one of these fonts for this post.

matt, thanks for leading me to that site - definitely a keeper. Halloween is big in our home.

First things first: I was talking to a friend the other day about how strange it feels for an european filmgoer to see a film open in North America months after it's had its continental run. Oh, well. Only wish this could happen more often.

Now on to the film. I've seen The Descent months ago and own the UK DVD since March so I guess my opinion is not as fresh as it could be. I've had the chance to lend my DVD to several friends (a thing I actually enjoy doing and suffice to say they all are extremely appreciative of this)and they all mostly agree that it's an above average horror/action movie that somehow passed under the radar (and you can all put the blame to the similarly themed but apparently inferior, The Cave).

Will it be a future rental classic (the 80's influence is clear)? Who knows? Still, it's a perfectly competent sophomore effort by the director that first mixed Werewolves with the military (see Dog Soldiers for evidence) and somehow managed to succeed all the way. Six men in the first one and six girls in the second: he seemed to have found his own brand of hit formula but are the films really that good and groundbreaking? Well, they are good fun and they are entertaining (if the rollercoaster is your thing -- I know mine is) and they are able to hold your breath for most of the time which is a rare thing these days, horror-wise. But are they really scary and do they probe into your id like a piercing needle, leaving irreparable damages along the way? Frankly, no.

Unless you have a serious problem of claustrophobia, that is. Or reocurringly dream of encountering a lycanthropian creature while doing night scouts in the woods.

Still, that is not to say that he won't go on to make even better movies (everything points to that direction) but I think that the first thing that an aspiring horror movies director should always have in mind is that the most simple device to scare people off their wits is to stir their pot of the unconscious. And I'm not talking phobias here, if you know what I mean. The human mind is full of trap doors and closed doors and if you can tap into that endless maze of moldy corridors and strip away the fragile veneer of apparent self-confidence that is deceivingly covering them, then you're on the right track to provide some good old-fashioned jolts to your audience.

There is a difference between being scared and being traumatized. And let's just say I'm getting tired of the rollercoaster. I want something that makes me afraid to leave my house in the morning! I want something that stops me from addressing strangers in the street or on a shop!

Nice film, The Descent, though. Recommended.

BTW, how does the US version end, anyway? Oh, and the part about the director having to film a more logical version for its north american distribution always makes me laugh hard. Is the average IQ so low over there?