Digital is Dead, Long Live 35mm
The Descent (2005)
directed by Neil Marshall
rating: 3 out of 5 cravats
on DVD from Netflix
The one thing I was never convinced of was that this was the US of A. Those are Scotland hills and Scottish goblins. And it's still an hour and forty minutes when it could be 80 flat. You don't need the marriage or the introductions - just the girls and the cave and one little lie. You wouldn't even need to change the ending. Who would want to (although I guess they did for its American debut)?
Some of Marshall's most beautiful shots are from a distance: inching towards the light, hanging by a cable. Scary isn't a girl getting attacked by a crawler; it's the girl unable to help as the crawler drags her conscious friend away. And there's one Fulci trick the director gets down pat: some awfully beautiful up-close eyes.
The hundred-year old climbing equipment and cave paintings lend the whole show a nice air of haunting long before the flesh-and-blood monsters appear, like it isn't just a cave but a human space, where people moved and talked and died. Then it isn't just rock climbers underneath the Appalachians, but the ground beneath your feet, right now.
directed by Neil Marshall
rating: 3 out of 5 cravats
on DVD from Netflix
The one thing I was never convinced of was that this was the US of A. Those are Scotland hills and Scottish goblins. And it's still an hour and forty minutes when it could be 80 flat. You don't need the marriage or the introductions - just the girls and the cave and one little lie. You wouldn't even need to change the ending. Who would want to (although I guess they did for its American debut)?
Some of Marshall's most beautiful shots are from a distance: inching towards the light, hanging by a cable. Scary isn't a girl getting attacked by a crawler; it's the girl unable to help as the crawler drags her conscious friend away. And there's one Fulci trick the director gets down pat: some awfully beautiful up-close eyes.
The hundred-year old climbing equipment and cave paintings lend the whole show a nice air of haunting long before the flesh-and-blood monsters appear, like it isn't just a cave but a human space, where people moved and talked and died. Then it isn't just rock climbers underneath the Appalachians, but the ground beneath your feet, right now.
posted by NPK at 7:53 AM
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