THE DESCENT PART 2 (2009)
If you ask me, when the moneymen sat down to decide which Neil Marshall movie they were gonna make a sequel to, they picked the wrong one. I´m not saying that this one is a failure but come on, let´s agree that “Doomsday” is the one movie so far in Marshall´s oeuvre that deserves a sequel. It had everything going for it: the lead character with a cool name (Eden Sinclair), that whole post apocalyptic world with cannibals roaming around the wastelands and so on. Man, there could´ve been some great straight-to-DVD-sequels there. Imagine going to your local video store (you youngsters who have no idea what I´m talking about can just stop an old guy in the street and ask him how you got a hold of movies before the internet came along) and picking up “Doomsday II: The Garden of Eden” or something along those lines. But you see, “Doomsday” wasn´t as big of a hit as “The Descent” was so that´s why we´re now treated to “The Descent Part 2”, produced by Neil Marshall but directed by the guy who made sure the coffee was the right temperature on the set of the first one, or something like that.
But lo and behold, it´s not a straight-to-DVD-release! This one actually had a theatrical run which is kind of impressive that the producers didn´t give in and just churned out a sequel with much smaller budget right away. That shows that they at least started out with some ambition.
And I gotta admit, in no way does this feel like a rushed work like so many other sequels do. It´s just that no matter how you look at it there´s no way that this movie is gonna hold any surprises for those who´ve seen the first one.
It picks up right where the first one left off (at least the American-released version, but more on that later) with Sarah (Shauna MacDonald) emerging alone from the Appalachian cave where she had to fight those cave dwelling fuckers in the first movie. Unable to plausibly explain to the authorities what happened – or why she’s covered in her friends’ blood – Sarah is forced back to the subterranean depths to help locate her five missing companions. As the rescue party drives deeper into the caves, Sarah starts having flashbacks of what went down and she starts to realize the full horror and that they don´t stand a chance. It doesn´t take long before she´s face to face with the crawlers again.
Actually, it does take quite a while and that´s one of this movie´s major flaws. The director does his best at trying to create some suspense of what will come and he holds out on us a good 45 minutes before we get to see them again and I think that´s way too long. It worked in the first one but that´s because we didn´t know what to expect. In this one, Sarah suffers from memory loss but it´s not like we do, is it? At least, I don´t. I can´t speak on behalf of you and I don´t know what you like to digest or inhale while you watch movies but I have a pretty clear memory of the first one. That means the suspense of not knowing what´s lurking in the shadows is gone. We know it´s those bald, creaking, crawling fuckers and director Jon Harris spends too much time building up their entrance, which is a shame. Because let´s face it, you can´t top that first time you saw them in the first movie. And I guess that´s why he doesn´t even try (SPOILER!!!). He just uses the same scene again. I mean literally! We get to see that scene from the first movie on a camcorder which they find in one of the tunnels.
I don´t know, some of you out there might think that this is a brilliant way to play on the audience´s expectations in our post modern society and what not, but I thought that this was pretty lazy filmmaking. The thrill of not knowing exactly what these creatures are and the joy of knowing that you are about to watch a brand new monster on screen is gone this time around but it´s like if someone forgot to tell Harris (who was actually the editor on the first one and not the coffee temperature guy as I insinuated before). It seems as if the guy is unaware that this is actually part 2 he´s directing.
Then we have that whole ordeal with the different endings of the first part. As you might remember, here in Europe we got the usual bleak ending that we´re used to with Ingmar Bergman and all of that. It ended with Sarah escaping the cave but just when you thought that she was safe, it cut back to cave where we saw her sitting all alone, utterly insane. Now, apparently this was too much for the Americans so their version ended with Sarah escaping. The credits basically started rolling a minute earlier in the stateside version.
It´s this version that the sequel takes its cue from, which makes it pretty weird for the European viewers who hasn´t seen (or heard) about the American ending, right? We can´t expect everyone to be as obsessive about horror movies as us, can we? I´ve actually heard that for some people out there, movies are not a matter of life or death! This is true, my friends. These creatures walk among us. Hell, you might´ve even spoken to one of them today without knowing it. Don´t ask me what they fill the hours of the day with. But anyway, I can imagine it being pretty confusing for the more casual viewer. But then again, who cares about the “more casual viewer”? We´re hardcore here.
There are a number of things that I appreciate about this movie and that is the fact that the filmmakers does not try to widen the story just because that´s what you´re supposed to do when you make a sequel and I think we gotta give them credit for that. They didn´t go the Cameron-route and go all “Aliens” on our asses, which is a good thing but it´s also this that makes the film feel too familiar, like I´ve mentioned.
A thing that I don´t like is (SPOILER!!!) is the obligatory “shock”-ending, which naturally sets it up for a third installment. I don´t know about you but I think it´s definitely time we gave these “shocking” endings a rest now, isn´t it? They really ran that type of endings into the ground back in the 90´s. It´s been done enough. But despite this I could definitely go for a third serving of “The Descent”. I´m not sure how you could widen this story but it would cool to see how it would play out if they managed to smoke the crawlers out of their cave. Maybe a “hunter becoming the hunted”-type of story in the Appalachians, in broad daylight? It would be interesting to see what another filmmaker would do with that concept.
So when it comes to sequels, this one isn´t half bad and while it doesn´t deviate from the formula set up by the first one, it still manages to soil some of the mystery the first one created. But it´s still a solid enough film that I think is worth checking out. You could do a lot worse on a Saturday night. Not that I condone staying at home on Saturday night to watch movies, mind you. You should be out drinking and making an ass of yourself then.
Until next time: take scare!
Thomas
Tags: Doomsday, Jon Harris, Neill Marshall, Sequel, The Descent