CK: Institutional Context - The Descent (Marshall, 2007)

The Descent (Marshall, 2007)

Production:

• Filmmakers originally planned for the cast to be both male and female, but Neil Marshall's business partner realised that horror films almost never have all-female casts. Defying convention, Marshall cast all women into the role.

• Marshall cited the films The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, The Thing, and Deliverance as influences in establishing tension in The Descent.

• Marshall also said at the 63rd Venice International Film Festival that was inspired by Italian horror films of the past, in particular by Dario Argento and Lucio Fulci.

• Production of The Descent was in competition with an American film of a similar premise, The Cave. The Descent was originally scheduled to be released in the United Kingdom by November 2005 or February 2006, but The Cave began filming six months before its competitor. The Filmmakers of The Descent decided to release the film before The Cave, so they fast-tracked production to be completed by the end of February 2005.

• Filmmakers kept the crawler design hidden from the actresses until they were revealed in the scenes in which the characters encountered the creatures, to allow for natural tension.

Distribution:

• The skull of a women motif used in some advertising material is based on Philippe Halsman's In Voluptas Mors photograph.

• The film's marketing campaign in the United Kingdom was disrupted by the London bombings in July 2005. Advertisements on London's public transport system (including the bus that had exploded) had included posters that carried the quote, "Outright terror... bold and brilliant", and depicted a terrified woman screaming in a tunnel. The film's theatrical distributor in the UK, Pathé, recalled the posters from their placement in the London Underground and reworked the campaign to exclude the word "terror" from advertised reviews of The Descent. Pathé also distributed the new versions to TV and radio stations. The distributor's marketing chief, Anna Butler, said of the new approach, "We changed tack to concentrate on the women involved all standing together and fighting back. That seemed to chime with the prevailing mood of defiance that set in the weekend after the bombs."

• Neil Marshall stated in a review "Shauna was pretty upset about it; it was on newspapers all across the county" and cites the attacks as harming the film's box office, as "people were still trapped underground in reality, so no one really wanted to go see a film about people trapped underground..."

• Many commentators, including writers for Variety and The Times, remarked on the rather unfortunate coincidence.

• Due to these events there was some initial concern that the film's release might have been delayed out of sensitivity for the tragedy but Pathé ultimately chose to release the film on schedule, with a slightly retooled advertising campaign; however, the US promotional campaign managed by Lionsgate Films was significantly different from the original European version.