The Descent

[Masamune]

Hm.  Just got back from seeing it.  Very interesting.  Made by the same people as Saw and Hostel.  So of course it was extremely gorey and bloody.  I liked it.  It was a truly scary/terrifying movie, and not just from one perspective.  I read a review prior to seeing it that said it had a few "tributes" to other horror movies.

Anybody else have opinions?

[Cauton]

I think it's pretty good. The story is a bit stupid, but the atmosphere the movie creates is top-notch.

Oh, and I don't believe the director/writer Neil Marshall had anything at all to do with Saw or Hostel. He did, however, write and direct another good low-budget horror flick, Dog Soldiers.

[Masamune]

I didn't mean it was directed by them, but I recall it saying somewhere by the producers of those two movies.  Something of the sort.

The story is indeed full of non-logical ideas, but that's irrelevant.  For a horror movie, I wish to be scared.  Not the cheesy oh my god, it's dark and the music is getting loud something's going to happen.  The kind of scary you completely don't see coming.

The ending was also a bit confusing to me.  I don't wish to ruin anything though.

[Degolas]

I like it a lot. Had I seen it in the cinema I would have been pretty damn scared at times. It's a shame it becomes so much of a gorefest, as the suspenseful parts before that were far more effective, IMO

[ZE GRAND MASTER]

Has this film only just come out in America or something? I remember hearing about over a year ago after it was released in England. It ain't my sort of film really - I don't particularly like horror movies, especially 18-rated ones. I have heard it's meant to be very good, though.

[Degolas]

It's just been released over there I believe. I don't think anyone expected the film to do so well in Europe, so an American release was never planned. But after such success, and the horror genre being somewhat lacking at the moment, it finally got released there, with a different ending which I hear is very dumbed down from the original version.

For those in the US wondering about the ending, here is what happens in the original release version, in code of course. I've heard it will be included on the Region 1 DVD release.

Code:

In the original ending, the woman (Sarah?) scrambles out of the cave, gets in her car, drives off, vomits etc. I believe at this point in the US release we see undead Juno and then it ends. In the original, she then blacks out, then she sees her daughter with the birthday cake (like the scenes that were dispersed throughout the film, unless they were removed in the US), the candles are blown out, and then she opens her eyes, and is back in the cave on her own, the sound of the monsters echoing all around her. Fade out.

The idea I believe is to hint that perhaps all of it was a fragment of her imagination, a product of her mental instability since her families death, and that perhaps she killed all her friends herself for not giving her the support she needed at the time, and Juno for sleeping with her husband.

There you go.

[CastNuri]

...The Descent is a very, very, very bloody movie.

That is all I have to say.

:P

[Degolas]

...The Descent is a very, very, very bloody movie.

That is all I have to say.

:P

I know, ain't it great? :P

[CastNuri]

Well, yeah, if you find pools of blood 'great'. The movie was so red that it almost felt funny.

[Evil Gately]

I said when I saw it (must've been nearly a year ago now) that it was not a horror movie as such, but it was pretty darned horrific! By that, I mean a lot of the imagery is a lot less comfortable than we're used to. I mean, girls smashing demented, de-volved cave-dwellers' head's against rocks and shit is pretty nasty!

As for Deg's comment...

Code:

They took out all the birthday scenes and changed the ending? No way! The ending was one of the best bits! You always got the feeling that Sarah never quite recovered from losing her family, and the revelation that Juno, her best friend, had betrayed her too finally tipped her over the edge.

Obviously, the name of the film was more to do with Sarah's descent into madness, rather than the fact that that they go underground. With that in mond, I always kinda felt that in the end, she was still sitting in the cave, in the dark, having just murdered her friends...