The Descent

Directed by Neil Marshall

After his first feature, a werewolf flick entitled Dog Soldiers, made a huge killing in Britain, director Neil Marshall set about making the scariest movie he could possibly make.

“I thought Dog Soldiers had a tongue-in-cheek quality. It has lot’s of action, but wasn’t really scary or suspenseful. I wanted my next movie to be very, very, very scary,” says Marshall. “The idea for The Descent came to me when I was thinking about my scariest experience—when I was 12 and on a school trip down a mine shaft. We switched off our lights, and it was pitch black—like a solid entity. It was terrifying. That came to mind—then, I realized nobody had set a horror film in a cave...and I thought an all female cast would be unique, contemporary, dynamic and authentic. The story unearthed from there.”

“Act one introduces the girls, gets them into the cave. Act two—most of the film—milks the cave for every drop of suspense [with] so many ways to die: claustrophobia, heights in the dark, bats, all sorts of things. When you think it can’t get worse, I push it further by having something in the cave with them—but not too ‘other.’ Not bugs, aliens, worms. There’s nothing scarier than humans—intelligent and guileful. But an offshoot of humanity—cavemen who never left the cave, who evolved underground. Blind, with no pigment in their skin, they thrive down there.”

MERIN: Is that the creatures’ genesis?

WILLIAMS: Yeah. In my mind, anyway. They’ve been there hundreds of thousands of years. There’s a colony: males, females, infants. They survive by surfacing, grabbing food and taking it back down. That’s my personal backstory. I don’t explain it much in the film, but I leave clues—like  cave paintings.

That’s not how I interpreted it. I thought they were earlier cavers who’d evolved after centuries of not finding their way out.

That’s another possibility. In the film’s first cut, the girls hypothesized the cave theory about the creatures’ origins. But it seemed better to let audiences come to their own conclusions. Some things don’t need to be defined.

Agreed. So, how’d you develop their behavior? They seem unable to distinguish anything by smell or touch—only by sound.

They’re blind, so they hunt with sound. They’ve got sonar capacity. I figured with so much rotting flesh in the cave, it would stink so bad, hunting by smell would be a waste of time. In that environment, they wouldn’t be able to distinguish girls’ sweat. Even when the creature touches Sarah’s head, he thinks it’s just another carcass. She’s motionless, silent, covered in blood. That disguises her, keeps him from discovering her.

Where’d you shoot the cave scenes?

At Pinewood Studios [in London]. On sets. We could only afford six cave sets. We filmed in linear story order, so they never revisit the same cave. As soon as we finished one scene, we rebuilt the set with rocks and boulders as a different cave—and used it again down the line.

Were creatures generated?

I’m not a big believer in CGI. We used some green screen, but they’re mostly real—thanks to camera trickery and actors who’re very, very, very physically adept. We designed their behavior—attack patterns, how they’d climb and move like spiders.

They’re extraordinary. Given the darkness, the photography’s exquisite.

Thanks. We used camera trickery to give them an edge. And lighting. The girls’ flashlights illuminate a creature scuttling across the cave ceiling; we actually shot him scuttling across the floor. It’s the oldest trick in the book; works perfectly.

The only light is what the girls have—flashlights, flares, snap lights, fire. Huge portions of the screen are so pitch black, you can’t see what’s in the shadows. One-source lighting can make colors look purer. I was impressed with the range of colors in the stone.

The ending’s equivocal. Is Sarah hallucinating or are you pre-setting a sequel?

It depends on which version you’ve seen. There’re alternative endings.

Why alternative endings?

The ending shown in the U.K. is hopeless pessimism. It was what I’d set out to do, but it divided audiences. Some loved it, others hated it. The U.S. release gave me an opportunity to try this ending. It’s still not happy, but it makes the film different.

Why does horror fascinate you?

Horror’s a genre I grew up with and love, and I appreciate the craft of creating it. I like that it’s an underground genre that’s never been fully accepted into the mainstream. And, I’ve a slightly sadistic streak—I like watching audiences jump, scream and gasp.

Do you believe evil exists?

Absolutely—but not as an external force. Evil’s a human issue—acts of betrayal, murder and rape. Nobody has evil intent in The Descent. Everyone’s just fighting for survival. We’re more comfortable associating evil with concepts than admitting that it’s human nature. I believe denial of our potential for evil causes problems. We’re capable of committing atrocities—that doesn’t mean we will, but we’re capable. The trick is to not commit them.

What’s next?

A film called Doomsday. It’s a post-apocalyptic science fiction thriller.

I guess you’re still pushing to see what makes people jump most, huh?

Yes, I am.