Monday, August 07, 2006
Review: The Descent
The Descent is the latest film from Neil Marshall, the English director who made fun werewolves-and-squaddies film Dog Soldiers. It tells the story of six women who go explore a cave for a bit of fun and then get attacked by the sub-humanoid thingies that live there. That's pretty much it for plot.
It's nifty enough, better than Dog Soldiers, hardly ever betrays it's relatively low budget, actually scared me a bit a couple of times and has a hot Asian woman in it. These are good reasons to watch a film. However it has some bad acting, barely there characterization, it has 'people acting stupid' syndrome, very little narrative, and it has the schizophrenia of so many modern genre films of not knowing whether it is a horror movie or an action movie, or knowing whether it is a gleefully cheesy gore romp or a dead serious chiller.
All horror films must walk a knife edge between believability and phantasmagoria. The audience has to believe the world and be able to relate to it; otherwise they aren't going get scared when that world is ripped apart by whatever evil antagonizes it. Equally the film is simply not a horror film if there isn't any weird shit happening. The Exorcist, for example, works hard to set up a very mundane, real world and the success of that project is what makes the horror hit home.
This is not to say the film must have a documentary level of verisimilitude, but only that the film must stick to the rules it sets up in the first act. John Carpenter's The Thing, for example, is populated with very broadly defined, almost comic-book, characters, but those characters are never deviated from or undermined and so the tension remains high throughout the film.
Break these rules and the film stops being scary. After that the film is only good as a gore fest, which a lot of films are quite happy to be called and a lot of people are quite happy to watch. The problem with The Descent is that it fails to set up a coherent set of world-rules during the crucial first act.
After a brief prologue, the film cuts to the six women driving out into the country in preparation for the cave diving the next day. They are shown chatting, joking and drinking (and not, sorry, wearing sexy underwear and flirting). It is shown very simply, mostly in mid and wide shots, which gives the impression that these women are very normal, unremarkable people - thus setting this film up as a more reality-based, classy chiller dealing with how normal people deal with extreme situations. Unfortunately we then also have some very broadly depicted, larger than life characters - the grieving mother, the tomboy adrenaline junky and the pushy yank. This split in the types of character either shows up the 'big' characters as being horrendously cheesy or the 'normal' characters as being utterly dull or non-existent. This split is not helped by only two of the women (the tomboy and the yank) being naturally photogenic so the audience is drawn away from those other, rather drab (though I'm sure lovely in real life) characters.
Big characters allow for big melodrama. Smaller characters allow for more identifiably. Mixing the two only leads to confusion of tone.
Fortunately, things pick up when they get to the cave. There are extended spelunking scenes where the women climb walls and navigate tiny tunnels that are endlessly claustrophobic. I was squirming and I was watching on my small computer monitor. These scenes on the big screen would probably make me hyperventilate. There is no melodrama in these scenes and no supernatural menace - only the women navigating their environment - and they are the most effortlessly effective parts of the movie. This is where I thought the wobbly start could be forgiven and The Descent was going to turn into a very classy chiller.
Then the ‘people acting stupidly just for the plot to advance’ syndrome, always a killer to horror movie tension, pops up. It is forgivable perhaps once in a movie, and this instance winds them up in a possibly collapsing cave system they do not have a map for and with no help coming from outside. This is a fairly cool situation to be put in, so let’s forgive them this one.
Unfortunately, though they have just been trapped and most likely are dead, the film stays at the same emotional level for the next 15 minutes or so – there is neither them panicking, nor them laughing the problem off bullishly, nor them despairing nor arguing. There is not much reaction at all. They just keep moving, pretty much the same way they did before, making a disconnect between characters and audience. I thought I was supposed to be feeling the tension more, but the characters were not giving me any feedback neither positive or negative to this need.
Then, suddenly, they are panicking, and more stupid things happen. It feels like scenes of increasing panic have been cut here, giving a very jarring switch from calm to hysterical, or simply that the director was paying more attention to the environmental effects on his sets than on the emotional journeys of these six women.
This only serves to further alienate the audience from the emotional states of the characters. They can be calm, crazy, smart or stupid seemingly at random (though, to be honest, mostly to allow the director to get to the next set piece) and this destroys the identifiably of the characters.
Then we get our first view of the monsters which, to be honest is a terrible flub. With no set up or preamble we suddenly see a close up of a monster (albeit it in silhouette) with the women far in the background. Subtle glimpses before the main introduction can be fine - if they are subtle enough for the audience to almost miss them so as to install a sense of foreboding and general wtf-ness to the proceeding scenes. A giant close up is not subtle, and takes away from the real introductions coming up.
For the next few sequences, where the monsters are properly introduced, are the best of the film. From glimpses, to a truly excellent jump-scare to the first attack, subsequent panicking, attempts to fight back and the losses incurred, the sequence is lengthy, excellently paced, constantly involving and never repeats itself. It is good stuff.
The monsters are well realized, move in that believably inhuman manner that most movies utterly fail to achieve and are visceral, frightening and kinetic where most monsters are lumbering rubber mountains or fakey CGI-slickers. The do look a bit like Gollum, but the film gives you more than enough to suspend disbelief.
It's great stuff, and all looks to be forgiven.
However, after this sequence, when then film should be firing on all cylinders, it falls back into the same problems.
People die cheaply or stupidly, people stay alive just long enough to set up plot points, characters change, or suddenly become awesome ass-kickers, replete with sub-Tomb Raider posing, just to set up cool fight scenes or character conflicts.
The main conflict between the two main women, which I won’t spoil, is based upon a misunderstanding, which is always one of the more annoying ways to set up drama. A simple bit of dialogue would solve the misunderstanding, but it is never given, as that would stop the final confrontation.
This misunderstanding would gain power if the film took its characters seriously, and the film was an exploration of how friendships and personalities break down in crisis situations. Unfortunately the lack of characterization, and the herky-jerky way it depicts their emotional states, undermines that potential. Equally a strong narrative would help pull things along, but beyond them being stuck in a cave and being attacked, there is no plot. Neil Marshall is great at sequences, but not so great at linking them together.
All this leaves us a third act of random wandering around geography-less tunnels waiting for the inevitable monster to attack (and having the audience getting impatient for the reveal rather undermines the shock of those subsequent reveals) and several excitingly brutal if slightly confusing fight scenes.
Most of the classic horror films, such as The Exorcist, Cronenberg's The Fly, and Poltergeist rely almost entirely on character and mood. Even Carpenter’s The Thing has almost no action in it. Equally Aliens, while utilizing some of the tropes of horror, only uses the scares to make the action scenes more intense. The Descent, on the other hand, wants to be a character-based horror, but also wants to be an action film. It sketches in its characters poorly or very broadly, an acceptable trick for a gore fest which uses its characters as fodder, yet its ending relies on taking the characters seriously. It can not be both.
As such it is difficult to know how to judge The Descent. Teenagers and hardcore horror fans used to ignoring terrible faults if they get some good gore will forgive the film it’s dull opening as the cave scenes do deliver some tasty treats. Non-horror fans will enjoy the scenes of cave-diving as exercises in claustrophobic tension. General film fans will enjoy the mostly high level of technical expertise on display. And the hot Asian woman. Me, I’ll just get confused and slightly sad at the lost opportunities.
The more benevolent side of me wants to give Neil Marshall the benefit of the doubt and say he was genuinely trying to make a serious horror film that has things to say how people deal with loss and hopelessness but that he is currently lacking in the necessary skills in narrative and character development. In this way, we should all be looking forwards to his next films, as this could show the first-flowerings of a major genre talent.
The more cynical side of me suggests that he’s just making another cheesy gore-fest and shoved in some half-baked character and thematic work to confuse the credulous into thinking there’s more here than there is.
Ultimately, the only thing to sway anyone to the former position is that none of the women get naked or lez-up.
The Descent really belongs in a pre-Internet age, discovered in the grubby horror corner of your local video shop, or chanced upon on late night TV. Then the film's charms would shine through, and the reveal that there are monsters would be quite awesomely cool. As it is we do have the Internet and so we a: know everything that happens in the movie b: have our expectations artificially inflated by the fatuous hyperbole of most movie sites. It isn't as good as Alien, but it is better than most modern horror movies, definitely worth seeing the in the cinema but probably even better seeing it in a couple of years after you've forgotten all the hoopla. Boo!
((Women+Rope)-sex) x violence / The Goonies.
7 lady caves out of 10
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I don't know much about horror films.
I do know that girl in the first picture is unbelievably hot, and thus this warrants a possible rental from me.
She's super hot, and you should see where she can put her leg.
One of the other women looks like Owen Wilson though.
"She's super hot, and you should see where she can put her leg."
SOLD
I think you were pretty kind to it, but I think you're probably fairer than I am.
I think the review's longer than the movie.
As I was making some wider points about the horror genre, I think the length was justified.
On a completely unrelated note, does anyone know any other words for 'character'?
Protagonist/Antagonist?
The main bird is the protagonist, and the Chinese bird and Gollum(s) are the antagonists.
Wait so you didn't see this in the thater?
No. It came out in England way before. I think we both saw it on DVD.
Oh, gotcha.
Not a big on horror, but I enjoyed this movie. It's a fun "trash" watch, nothing more. Horror standards are not high, so I don't go in expecting some well thought out movie. If I want to think I'll watch Kobayashi, Kurosawa, or read a book!
-Rob
...
I'd say if this is your "trash" watch Rob, your standards are too high. You could be watching Uwe, or Troma.
I'd say the part I like about this movie is the ferocity of the creatures. In this, and Dog Soldiers, you have some fairly relentless monsters, even if they do only show up conveniently between the character scenes.
Don't get me wrong, I do enjoy both The Descent and Dog Soldiers. I actually like them a lot, but setting my standards low for these types of movies is the only way I can enjoy them. As for Troma, I'd rather have another hernia that makes squishies when I poke it. Either way you make a good point. And yes I'm a movie snob these days.
-Rob
I noticed, what with you throwing the names of Japanese masters around like that.
Films designed to speak to and play with our fears can be just as valid as those that would speak to our brains. Our emotions are as much a part of us as our intellects so to think of them as 'less' is very snobbish and, for that matter, unhealthy.
Horror can be great, horror can be shit, don't dismiss it because on the basis of it being horror.
The Descent deserves a lot more credit than this review gives it. I think you missed a large part of the movie. The tension between Sarah and Juno derives from the implications of the opening scene and the first appearance of the creatures. The women behaved like professional sportists and kept their heads in a dangerous situation, except for the one amateur who acted stupidly to advance the plot. The rest of them were set up as experienced outdoorswomen and acted like it until a whole mess of gribbly gollums showed up and ate one of their group.
I saw it in the theaters in the US and maybe the UK dvd has additional shots beyond the ending.