I am a huge fan of Neil Marshall's The Descent from 2005. In this spelunking-gone-monstrously-bad horror film, Marshall utilizes limited light and space and the palpable terror on the faces of the appealing, talented, all-female cast to prey upon age-old fears such as nychtophobia and claustrophobia. The realistic scenario, terrific performances, and implied rather than explicit horror create a literally pulse-pounding experience...
...that is, until the disappointing last half-hour when The Descent descends, heh, into a monster movie gore-fest, Marshall embracing all of the obvious, cheap techniques he so shrewdly eschews in the first part of the film. Granted, I love me a good gore-fest just like I love me a good cheeseburger from McDonald's. But when you're indulging in fine dining at a classy restaurant, you don't exactly want the waiter to bring out a microwaved apple pie and a McFlurry for dessert...They're delicious but don't exactly go with everything else you've been eating...That's basically how I felt about the turn of events in The Descent.
Despite such a disappointing, disjointed finish, I consider the first chunk of The Descent to be among the best I've ever seen in horror cinema. Like I said, I'm a fan. So naturally I became interested in Marshall's other movies: 2002's Dog Soldiers and 2008's Doomsday. Much to my disappointment, both are not very good.
Dog Soldiers, a werewolf movie with an anti-military/pro-soldier message, has low-budget charm on its side and one very well-directed chase scene involving Sean Pertwee (excellent as Smith in the kickass Event Horizon) but plenty of cheese, no real grasp of terror, slow pacing, and poorly drawn characters. Nevertheless, Dog Soldiers' status as a cult classic is understandable. It's made with a spirit of fun-- even though it may not exactly be fun to watch. Likeability, that most intangible of qualities, is perhaps Marshall's most distinguishing attribute as an auteur.
My interest in his work diminishing but not eradicated, I sought out Doomsday his futuristic post-apocalyptic action epic. Wow, is this movie a hot mess. The absurdly complicated and hole-laden plot follows Major Sinclair (Rhona Mitra) and her small military team's attempt to extract the cure to a plague from a quarantined Scotland decimated by said virus and ruled by savage tribal renegades (called marauders) who look like rejects from a 1980's punk bands replete with pink mohawks. This, Marshall says, is what society looks like when forced to rebuild from the bottom up. That is, until, Sinclair and her crew arrive at the medieval castle of doctor and supposed cure inventor, Kane (Malcolm McDowell, hammier than a Hormel factory) and encounter an apparently functioning feudal society, chain-mail, horses, and all.
Each of the governments depicted is authoritarian and violent. Britain is ruled by a sinister, ruthless Cheney-like advisor, Canaris, who imparts martial law, ghettoizes London, and has no qualms about killing civilians. The marauders are ruled by a violent and coarse, Sol who feeds human flesh to the populace. And finally, the medieval society is ruled by Kane who hosts gladiator events, brands his own daughter, and is just an all-around violent, bloodthirsty asshole.
Marshall hopes that the commonalities he depicts between the more primitive societies and Britain make us doubt our assumptions about the Western World's claims to modernity and ethics and realize that, really, we're all savages. The problem is, Marshall never provides a sufficient reason for his tribal and medieval templates, so the comparison rings hollow. How and why did the Scottish survivors from the virus choose these formations? The medieval setting in particular seems ridiculous and contrived. Given the presence of an inexplicably untapped nearby military arsenal with cars, phones, and other comforts of the modern world not to mention the scrappy-yet-considerable technology (cars, microphones, etc) of the marauders, it makes no sense why the Medieval folks would willingly submit themselves to such absurd conditions..
With more attention to these questions instead of unimpressive chase scene after chase scene, the film could have taken on a more dynamic and thoughtful character. But because Marshall overstuffs his movie like a loving mother inadvertently killing her bloated, obese child with outrageous portions of food, he fails to embellish or develop even his best ideas, leaving the audience to pick up the dribble of his scattered and jumbled half-notions.
Doomsday also has the misfortune of coming out after the gripping and intelligent, 28 Weeks Later which makes all the arguments Doomsday attempts to garble out while remaining coherent, tightly focused, and completely fucking scary.
That all said, Doomsday, true to form, has charm to spare. The protagonist, Sinclair (as played by Rhona Mitra) is so devoid of personality that she oddly starts to possess a weird charisma. To watch a movie with a heroine who never smiles, never exhibits a discernible sexuality, never experiences a big epiphany, and seems happy as a clam being a robotic killing machine is a nice relief from convention...Granted, she ain't no Sarah Connor or Ripley, but she's pretty damn cool.
Additionally, the glee with which Marshall invests his goriest moments (there's a particularly awesome decapitation with an even better aftermath) imparts the film with its spirit of fun and B-movie charm. Don't get me wrong. Doomsday is a complete and utter mess- narratively, conceptually, and even sometimes in terms of basic directorial competence, but as with Dog Soldiers and The Descent, the sense that Marshall loves movies and loves making them is all over this film. That joy, absent from so many airless Hollywood efforts, makes his films watchable even against all other odds...
Meanwhile, I hold out hope for the Neil Marshall film that fulfills the incredible promise of The Descent. After all, if the man can scare the bloody shit out of me once, he can damn well do it again.
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