The Descent
Images courtesy of Park Circus/Pathé
Austrian premiere of the newly restored version
Half a dozen adventurous, experienced explorers go spelunking in a cave system. Danger lurks everywhere. One minute the ground gives way, the next loose rocks come tumbling down—while creepy carnivorous cavern-crawlies start defending their habitat. If these women want to get out of the deep labyrinth with their lives and limbs intact, they must learn the peculiarities of this subterranean civilization. To make matters worse, not everything is as it seems in this movie, as life is often a delirium . . . The Descent was the perfect film for the Y2K crowd. On the one hand, unreliable narrators were all the rage in genre cinema; on the other, new dimensions were explored till the cows came home. Unlike other stabs at this material, Neil Marshall’s existentialist study has stood the test of time. (Olaf Möller)
Neil Marshall (b. 1970) is an English film and television director, producer, editor, and screenwriter. He shot his first films as a teenager on Super 8 and graduated from film school in Newcastle. Today, he is best known for directing the low-budget cult werewolf film Dog Soldiers (2002), the award-winning horror film The Descent (2005), which was his international breakthrough, the science-fiction actioner Doomsday (2008), the historical war drama Centurion (2010), and the superhero movie Hellboy – Call of Darkness (2019). He has also directed numerous television series, including two episodes of Game of Thrones: Blackwater and The Watchers on the Wall. His most recent feature is the equally steamy and gory Compulsion (2024).
Screenings
