USA: "The Descent" to open in the U.S., adding its name to the list of "slasher" films that have made the genre a favorite in Hollywood

Record ID: 722477

  • Title: USA: "The Descent" to open in the U.S., adding its name to the list of "slasher" films that have made the genre a favorite in Hollywood
  • Date: 4th August 2006
  • Summary: LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA, UNITED STATES (RECENT) (REUTERS) (SOUNDBITE) (English) "THE DESCENT" FILM DIRECTOR NEIL MARSHALL, SAYING: "It taps into real primal fears, claustrophobia, the dark, the fear of what is in the dark, real nightmare stuff. Heights, drowning, scary monsters, the works, it is all in there. It really gets under people's skin."
  • Embargoed: 19th August 2006 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Usa
  • Country: USA
  • Reuters ID: LVASYNPYC3OBINC4Q90PB934IG0
  • Story Text: "The Descent" is the latest entry into the "slasher-horror" flick category that has proved so successful in Hollywood. The film directed by Neil Marshall, is set in a cave in the Appalachian Mountains. It tells the story of six women friends on a daredevil holiday. The drama unfolds after the girls are unexpectedly trapped underground. Searching through a maze of tunnels for a way out, they find themselves hunted by a race of fearless, hungry predators, once humanoid but now monstrously adapted to live in the dark.
    Marshall told Reuters his goal in making the film was to make as frightening as possible.
    "It taps into real primal fears, claustrophobia, the dark, the fear of what is in the dark, real nightmare stuff. Heights, drowning, scary monsters, the works, it is all in there. It really gets under people's skin," exclaimed Marshall. Marshall defended the current genre of horror films that leave little to the imagination. While listing the horror masterpiece, "Psycho" as his personal favourite, Mashall added that recent title's like "Saw II" and "Hostel" are films that deserve recognition on their own.
    "It is really two different schools of filmmaking," said Marshall. "There is the school of thought where you leave everything up to the imagination and that is what they had to do back then, when they made "Psycho." It was all clever editing and implication. Now we don't have to do that, but the option is there to do that if you want to. There are different schools of horror making that some directors choose to do that, and that's great and so they should. But, some directors will not, and want to show a little bit more. There is an audience out there for it. There is a demand for this kind of stuff."
    Marshall said the "slasher" genre's wave of popularity is directly related to giving movie goers what they want.
    "There are levels of how extreme it is," Mashall said. "The desire to go be scared is the same, a fundamental or primal need for people. It's kind of the same of going on a rollercoaster or bungee jumping, there is some kind of need. In some people, it is an extreme need to free fall out of an airplane. In other people, they want ot be scared, but they don't want it to be as extreme as that, so they'll go see a horror film instead."
    "The Descent," which has already had a hugely successful release in Europe, opens in the U.S. on August 4.
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