Between hyperventilating and talking about periods, FullAuto casts an eye over The Descent.

Discuss the full article - Express Elevator To Hell by FullAuto below...

You've got me interested now. I didn't realise it was by the same guy who made Dog Soldiers and I don't usually like proper, scary horror films, but this sounds intriguing now...

*Adds it to his rental list*

It's a bit good.

A good movie, the bits in the cave are fantastically good in a freaky scary way and the girl i was watching it with was not enjoying it for the same reason
A bit of a slow starter, the outside the cave bits were a bit hammy and forced i felt as they tried to define the back story and relationships in a small amount of time, but thats to be expected with any horror film. Most people, like myself are just sitting there thinking "lets get to the scary bit"

The slow start had me fidgeting. "It's going to start...now! No, no no, wait, it's going to start...no...now! ...Fuck." And as a result when it did kick off I was tense and not expecting it.

Oh dear. They're changing the ending for the Yanks.

http://www.fang...cle.php?id=5749

Strangely, Marshall's own words tell a slightly different tale regarding his feelings about the original ending:

I love the ending. I think the ending poses a lot of questions. Some people are going to dislike it. What can you do? Some people want things easily resolved. But I like the fact that people walk away from it with very different ideas about what it means.

Sigh.

Best line in a film in ages: "I'm an English teacher, not fucking Tomb Raider". There's that Dog Soldiers humour I loved so much

Finally getting round to watching the last half hour. Watched the first hour late at night which was a bad idea because I turn into a bit of a complete girl with horror films - sorry chaps!

It's a horribly claustrophobic film. Good stuff so far

That's alright, mate. Blair Witch still makes me scream like a little boy with a sore cock.

Forgot my follow-up post

So... what's wrong with the ending? Those folks over the pond getting too confused again?

SPOILERS BELOW!

It's pretty fucking obvious she's lost the plot, dreamt that bit and is still down there. Fair do's she'll probably kick the ass of each and every crawler on her tod whilst she's at it.

Cracking film. Always left you guessing as per Marshall's previous work.

Will I watch it again? Hell no, scared me enough the first time round. If I'd have seen it on the big screen I'd have left more than an empty popcorn tub on my seat if you know what I mean.

I have no clue what changing the ending is about. Lion's Gate said Marshall always had two endings in mind, which is bollocks, because he says in one of the commentaries that he's always had the original ending in mind.

Still, they've also released a trailer containing one of the principal scares of the film and a great new poster:

http://www.cine...oster-2739.html

If that has anything to do with the film at all, please let me know.

Nope, I don't remember the Lesibians pulling a train bit

I think someone had a stab at making a skull out of people but tried rather too hard to stick to basic biology whilst they were at it and it just comes out crapper than it otherwise would have been, which would have been... well... still crap

Another new poster.

http://www.drea...icle&sid=55

Although not spectacular, it's better than the 'skull' one. I think LGF abandoned using the UK ads because of the bombings in London.

http://www.drea...cle&sid=110

I. Feel. Ill.

The only line worthy of my attention in that whole article was te ollowing humorous line:

[quote]Discuss going down with the girls again in our forums![/qote]

...and even then I didn't laugh because the rest of the article horrified me.

On the other hand, if Marshall is letting this happen simply because he wishes to roll in a large pile of cash before spending it on making a new, unique, true masterpiece then I'm all for it. If he's just being greedy though... grr.

Either way I doubt I will be watching any sequel.

Also, what's with the Americans? Surely hyping the film up beyond belief is just stupid as most of the fans of this genre with any sense can just rent the European region DVD from Amazon.com leaving only those folks who said things like "I don't get it" at teh original ending to watch it in the cinema?

Somehow, I don't think Marshall would let this happen if he had any choice in the matter. I may be wrong, but I'm pretty sure once LGF bought the rightsto the film, they can do whatever the fuck they want with it, including making sequels.

They probably offered him a fat cheque to produce (he'll probably have nothing to do with the actual making of the film, like Carpenter and that shitty Fog remake).

As to hyping The Descent, it's just the typical way things are done, I think. "The best horror film since Alien" isn't really that big a claim (I can only think of a few really good horror films in the past twenty-five years or so). Some people will see it as saying The Descent is better than Alien, of course, but those people can be ignored since they can't understand a sentence of clear English.

It's getting a wide release in the US (but only 1,700 cinemas compared to a bigger wide release of 3-4,000) so LGF, to maximise profit, have to hype it as hard as they can.

Well, TD was released in North America on the 4th, and it's made a cool $9 mill so far, for a total of around $19 mill worldwide (that's just box office, not counting the DVD sales). So this makes it...technically more profitable than POTC2, X-Men 3, MI3 and Superman Returns, thanks to its extremely low production cost.

Three cheers.