Pleasantly surprised by a movie I thought would be bad.
I twittered about this last week, but recently I watched a movie that I expected to be fun in a B-grade, horror flick kind of way, and ended up better than I expected. Not only were there some scenes at the beginning that actually got my heart racing and my nails biting into my palms — and they had nothing to do with cave-dwelling mutants, but all to do with claustrophobia (which I don’t even suffer) — but the real surprise was the cast and the characters.
That movie was The Descent, directed by Neil Marshall and starring Shauna MacDonald (Sarah) and Natalie Mendoza (Juno).
The story was a little slow to get going, setting up tension between the main female characters (there are pretty much only women in this movie), but once they are in the cave I loved it. And it wasn’t the scare factor: it was the knowledge that they had women here who could kick my ass forward and backward, then start in on any action hero and come out hurting, but not without giving the dude a bloody mouth first.
I remember a moment the first time I was watching Scream, when what’s-her-face’s character just started whaling on the bad guy. Fighting back, and hurting him. My god, I loved the movie for that. But this one? Takes that to another level.
And it’s not like they are suddenly, inexplicably ninjas — just strong women desperate to save their lives. They kick, they punch, they scream, they get hurt, they bite.
Even the “bad” one — the one who was sleeping with her friend’s husband before he died (this isn’t a spoiler because it’s obvious from the beginning and he gets killed in the first scenes) — kicks ass. She kicks the MOST ass, and I have kind of a girl-crush on Natalie Mendoza now.
Anyway. I want more movies like this*.
(Also, if I’m ever in a cave fighting off a bunch of mutant cave-dwellers with an pick-ax or whatever that was, and you come up behind me real quiet-like, I’m probably going to accidentally kill you, too. And I’d feel bad, but I’d also think “Yeah, okay, she’s dead — I’ll leave her and try to come back to her later.” And if the “good” character later effed up my knee with that ax because I’d slept with her husband and accidentally killed the idiot who came up behind me in a dark cave, I’d think that she deserved the UK ending, too.)
ETA: *I heard they are making a sequel. Considering the ending, that’s not EXACTLY what I mean by “wanting more movies like this”.
Yeah, I think I saw the (nonhappy) ending. Maybe that was the UK one? At any rate, 80% loved the movie, and kind of hated the last 15 minutes of it. I loved Juno too – she kicked ass. But yes, the scenes in the early parts of the cave were EFFING SCARY AS HECK. Gah.
I enjoyed it far more than I thought I would, too.
ROTFL–I love ass kick heroines too. And if there’s mutants around, I want to do some ass kickin’. I’m going to have to see this movie.
Kick ass women kicking ass. I enjoyed the Descent also. Loved the 4 alternate endings.
Heard that the sequel will be with the remaining survivor going back down to the caverns. They couldn’t pay me enough to do that. I would bring along some major fire power and burn those flesh eating cavern dwellers.
Oh yes, this is exactly what my family thought of it, too. In fact, we were just talking about it last week. My husband reminded me NOT to say that the structure of the story is reminiscent of a famous short story so as not to ruin it, so am biting my tongue on that.
Oh, and my husband reminded me that the guy who directed The Descent directed a pretty decent werewolf movie called Dog Soldiers that we also went into not expecting much, only to be happily surprised.
@fiveandfour: Oh, yes! Dog Soldiers was an enormous surprise — I liked it a lot, too. I haven’t seen it in a while — might have to re-watch it.
In a cave, you say? *runs away*
I’m somewhat claustrophobic and so I don’t think I’ll be watching this anytime soon.
Ahh, The Descent. I loved Dog Soldiers and so when I heard about The Descent I was super excited. Saw it in the theater, bought the dvd, the whole shebang. And yep, totally agree with you Meljean that it’s the surprising depth to the characters and their human, terrified reactions to everything that makes this film work. (I was totally sympathizing with the “bad” one too)
I didn’t know there was a planned sequel though…meh. No thank you. I liked the UK ending. If you liked this one for the fighting back quality of the ladies, I’m totally recommending Death Proof (hell. YES.). But I’d stay away from Doomsday by Neil Marshall. Disappointing, especially considering how much I loved these first two films.