re:mote voices

Title:Descent
Cast: Shauna Macdonald, Alex Reid, Natalie Jackson Mendoza, Saskia Mulder, Nora-Jane Noone, MyAnna Buring, Molly Kayll
Director: Neil Marshall

The Descent is the new film from writer/director Neil Marshall. Who made his name with the film Dog Soldiers, which pitched a group of soldiers against werewolves in the wilds of Scotland. The Descent starts in Scotland, with a semi-Scottish cast before moving to America, and with that darker territory.

Sarah, Beth and Juno are white water rafting in Scotland when something happens. This has a deep effect on the characters – unbalancing them and defining the tensions that will emerge later. A year later, Sarah and Beth travel to America to join Juno and friends for another adventure holiday. This year 6 women will go caving, in search of thrills and in the hope that it will bring them together again.

Going in there is a discussion of the problems that people can experience in caves, dark and confined places, which serves to provide some definition to what follows. The film becomes increasingly paranoid and claustrophobic as the girls crawl through restricted, water logged spaces, hanging from ropes over precipices. For the first half of the film this is a tense action adventure, about the sport and the physical tensions. But as things go on, the dark starts to move, previous problems coming to the fore. So that things start to get out of hand, especially since they are not alone.

The Descent is a progressively nasty film, for all the lighthearted banter that starts the film, this is darker material than Dog Soldiers. With that, this is not especially a “horror” film in the sense of ghost stories and scares. Though the film certainly works to manipulate that sense of uncertainty and discomfort at every opportunity. The Descent is more of a Chainsaw Massacre type film, viscerally nasty. A genre which has seen something of a resurgence in the last few years, but The Descent feels less restrained – probably more comparable to the French film Haute Tension than something like the American Wrong Turn.

Marshall’s approach is interesting. At times the dialogue/performances feel amateurish. Suggesting a low budget approach, which it probably is, comparatively. Though in the quality of film and composition there is a definite ability at work. The soundtrack is one of those which is integral to the mood and the way the film flows – borderline excessive with it’s intrusive presence, but in some ways the soundtrack is taken to a conscious excess that takes the mood to a striking level.

The cast is remarkable, in that all the lead characters are women. Meaning that the range of characters in this kind of genre have to be amongst the women – those that will panic and run, those that will be picked off easily, those who will stand and fight, the ruthless, the brave, and so on. With this there is a certain level of exploitation, though the scream queen/horror girl is an established standard. Again this is a done in a conscious manner, early on when faced with the cave entrance one of the girls make a comment about “tomb raider”, and thee is a sense at points that Marshall is going for an iconic image. The way a character will stop and pose, climbing axe in hand, or drenched from head to foot in blood – something else which recalls images of Cecile De France in Haute Tension.

The cast predominantly comes from a TV background, with some limited film experience in most cases. To a degree Shauna MacDonald (Sarah) is the lead, familiar from her role in the Glasgow based comedy Late Night Shopping, as well as the BBC’s spy drama Spooks, while Alex Reid (Beth) was in ITV’s Special Forces drama Ultimate Force. Saskia Mulder was in the film The Beach, along with Channel 4’s Glasgow based comedy series The Book Group, while MyAnna Buring who plays her sister and medical student has been in the BBC’s medical drama Casualty. Natalie Jackson Mendoza (Juno) was in the films Code 46 and Moulin Rouge, though at least in Code 46 it was a minor role, while Nora-Jane Noone who plays her prodigy Holly was in Ella Enchanted as well as the Irish film The Magdalene Sisters.