Behind the Scenes Compilation from the movie The Descent (2005).
The Descent is a 2005 British horror film written and directed by Neil Marshall. The film stars actresses Shauna Macdonald, Natalie Mendoza, Alex Reid, Saskia Mulder, Nora-Jane Noone and MyAnna Buring. The plot follows six women who enter an uncharted cave system and struggle to survive against the monstrous cannibals inside.
Filming took place in the United Kingdom. Exterior scenes were filmed at Ashridge Park, Hertfordshire, and in Scotland. Because the filmmakers considered it too dangerous and time-consuming to shoot in an actual cave, interior scenes were filmed on sets built at Pinewood Studios near London designed by Simon Bowles.
The Descent opened in cinemas in the United Kingdom on 8 July 2005. It premiered at the 2006 Sundance Film Festival and was released on 4 August 2006 in the United States. The film received positive reviews with praise for the performances, cinematography and Marshall's direction. It was also a box-office success, grossing $57.1 million worldwide against a £3.5 million budget. Since its release, it has been regarded as one of the best horror films of the 2000s.
A sequel, titled The Descent Part 2, was released in 2009.
The Descent is a 2005 British horror film written and directed by Neil Marshall. The film stars actresses Shauna Macdonald, Natalie Mendoza, Alex Reid, Saskia Mulder, Nora-Jane Noone and MyAnna Buring. The plot follows six women who enter an uncharted cave system and struggle to survive against the monstrous cannibals inside.
Filming took place in the United Kingdom. Exterior scenes were filmed at Ashridge Park, Hertfordshire, and in Scotland. Because the filmmakers considered it too dangerous and time-consuming to shoot in an actual cave, interior scenes were filmed on sets built at Pinewood Studios near London designed by Simon Bowles.
The Descent opened in cinemas in the United Kingdom on 8 July 2005. It premiered at the 2006 Sundance Film Festival and was released on 4 August 2006 in the United States. The film received positive reviews with praise for the performances, cinematography and Marshall's direction. It was also a box-office success, grossing $57.1 million worldwide against a £3.5 million budget. Since its release, it has been regarded as one of the best horror films of the 2000s.
A sequel, titled The Descent Part 2, was released in 2009.
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Short filmTranscript
00:00And I always wanted to do a horror film set in a cave.
00:14It's the classic environment, and horror films are best set in the dark, and you can't get
00:19any more dark than this.
00:23Six feisty, fearless women who are all friends and share a passion for climbing and the outdoors.
00:37One weekend they go on an adventure together down a cave.
00:40Here's to our adventure.
00:51As they descend further and further into this cave, things start to go drastically
00:56wrong.
00:59They get lost amongst this sort of labyrinth of tunnels.
01:06And this is when we found out that not only are we in the wrong cave, we are in a cave
01:11that nobody knows about.
01:13And you see the fracture of the friendships, and the fracture of minds.
01:18What it is about is a descent into madness, and a physical descent into the depths of
01:24the earth.
01:25And just when you think things can't go more wrong, they can.
01:33Discover that they're not the only people in the cave, there's something else.
01:42These other beings that don't really want them to survive.
01:48And we still haven't figured out which way is out.
01:50Run!
02:00Don't tell anyone, but the dark scares me.
02:04I'm so cold.
02:08Things going towards my eyes, or things being put in my eyes, frightens the life out of me.
02:13When I was reading the script for this film, I read it in the summer.
02:18I was laying in the garden, beautiful sunshine, wearing my sunglasses.
02:22Got to halfway through the script, hairs were going up on the back of my neck, and I had
02:26to go inside and stop reading the script.
02:28Good God.
02:29Squish them.
02:30It's unbelievable.
02:31What scares me?
02:32Wasps scare me.
02:34I'm not really afraid of anything physical.
02:37I'm not afraid of heights, really.
02:39I'm not afraid of spiders or anything like that.
02:42Spiders, and women.
02:44And spider women.
02:47Get that.
02:49I think anything that's set in a house scares me the most, because I'm in a house.
02:54If I saw this film, it would be okay, because I don't generally go caving.
02:59Or even the Blair Witch Project, I don't generally go camping, so I can deal with it.
03:03But anything where there's things in a house, I freak out.
03:07Horror films are a lot of fun to make, and a lot of fun to watch audiences watching.
03:17You can hear the fear.
03:19You can hear the gasps, you can hear the jumps and the screams and the laughs, and all that
03:23kind of stuff that you get when you're watching a horror film.
03:26It's a very audible reaction that you get.
03:28I actually went to the cinema a few nights ago with Neil and Sam, the director of photography.
03:33And we went to go and see The Grudge, which is a great, great movie.
03:37And they were sitting either side of me and loving it, and I was just avoiding it.
03:41And I was, oh, my goodness.
03:43And Neil kept on poking me because I was shaking.
03:47Jaws would be probably my favourite horror.
03:50A Miracle My Orphan, I do.
03:52Because I watched that as a kid and just thought, that is tremendous.
03:55Boringly, The Shining.
03:58It's one of my favourite films, so The Shining, without a doubt.
04:10I've thought about it for the last three days, and I still can't come up with a definite one.
04:14There was one thing which was pure spectacle or prosthetics.
04:20Evil Dead 2.
04:22It's probably completely not objective, but it's definitely Dog Soldiers.
04:33My favourite horror films and the films that have inspired this more than any other,
04:37I'd have to say Deliverance, which although isn't technically a horror film,
04:42Alien and The Shining.
04:44Each dealing with aspects of this film in different ways.
04:47Shining about somebody going insane.
04:52Alien about atmosphere and menace and dark spaces.
04:55And Deliverance about the idea of an adventure trip that goes wrong.
04:59It's so inspiring how much love and passion he has for film and especially horror.
05:05When he talks about it, he becomes like a little boy, just talking about the gore.
05:10Put the shits right up the audience eyes.
05:13He finds them hysterical, really funny, and I just went, that's a different way of looking at it.
05:18And mark.
05:23And cut there. Cut there. Super.
05:27I think there must be a dark streak running through me, but I just love scaring the pants off people.
05:31Ah!
05:36Ever since we conceived the script idea,
05:40there's been a kind of running joke that this film is six chicks with picks.
05:47I'd seen Dog Soldiers and I loved it and I wanted to work with Neil.
05:50And once I'd read the script, I just thought it was interesting to have an all-female cast.
05:55Come in.
05:58Which, in an action horror film, was quite unique.
06:01Seven weeks, really intense filming, all-female.
06:05And I thought, oh, well, this is going to be interesting.
06:12I confess that I went into it cautiously,
06:16having worked with a pretty much all-male ensemble cast on Dog Soldiers.
06:21But at the end, we've managed to achieve that same atmosphere of collaboration
06:28and a good sense of fun, but also a good sense of professionalism
06:31when everybody's just mugging in.
06:33You know, to be honest with you, it's such an ensemble thing,
06:36cast and crew together, so much of the crew's male, so it balances it out well.
06:40I think you do.
06:42I think it's going to be something for Sunday.
06:44The crew are brilliant. Absolutely wonderful.
06:47And that's working really nicely and having a great time with them.
06:50Look at this bunch of talkers.
06:52No, no, no, no, no.
06:54It's just really like having your little guy with you the whole time.
06:57No, no, no, no, no.
07:01We are very friendly. We had to bond really quickly.
07:04We were doing climbing the first week of knowing each other,
07:08where you're holding the rope and you're basically, you know,
07:12your friend's up there on a wall, your friend you've known for half an hour
07:15is up on the wall and you've got her life in your hands.
07:19Boom!
07:21We learnt basic climbing techniques
07:24and how to abseil and use a harness and rig up ropes,
07:30which is really, really exciting.
07:36I went down with them and did my first bit of abseiling
07:39and things like that down on Waterfall and it was great,
07:42but it's not something I do as a pastime.
07:44We did a lot of research.
07:47We did a lot of climbing to various caves in the UK
07:50to try and get stuck in tiny, small spaces
07:53and to be in awe of the huge spaces.
07:55Oh, my God!
07:59We went caving in Derbyshire.
08:01It was really good fun, just getting used to all the equipment.
08:04Doing a lot of upper-strength exercises,
08:07a lot of pull-ups and hanging there for a bit,
08:10which creates massive respect from guys in the gym, I can tell you.
08:15I was actually saying to one of the girls on set,
08:18knowing how to grab parts of the wall,
08:22I'm so glad that we had that training
08:25because you could feel quite clumsy and it is quite dangerous.
08:28As long as I look up, I'm fine.
08:31Just don't look down.
08:39So we did a course of climbing, we did whitewater rafting training.
08:45Down, down!
08:47Did you enjoy it?
08:49We went real caving underground and just generally kept fit.
08:54This isn't a film production at all.
08:56It's actually a subversive training programme for the CIA.
09:02For my character, I had to chop my hair out.
09:05I was dead.
09:07It was a bit traumatic for the first week or two, but it's cool.
09:10I didn't really prepare mentally.
09:12I prepared what I thought the journey of the character was going to be
09:16and it's quite dramatic, the change she goes through.
09:19It's not really a full circle, it's more of a spiral.
09:34Almost always when I start working on a character,
09:37I start writing a diary as the character.
09:41One thing which for me was very important with Rebecca
09:44is very, very, very safety.
09:46Safety first.
09:48Always look around and see which things could possibly be dangerous.
09:51How are people around you doing?
09:53Do they look like they could be flipping out or not?
09:55You know, I have done this before.
09:57I'm only looking after you and I appreciate it in small doses.
10:00So to get into that thing and make it natural,
10:03you kind of spend a few days, a few weeks,
10:06really annoying your friends, checking them out the whole time.
10:10Can you try and justify this?
10:12What do you mean? What does she mean?
10:14Wait a minute, you filed a flight plan with Mountain Rescue.
10:16If we don't report in, they'll just come looking for us.
10:18Yeah, that's how it's supposed to work,
10:20except I filed a plan for Boreham Caverns
10:22and this is not Boreham Caverns, it's a Juno.
10:24These girls are game for anything
10:26and on screen they're just mind-blowing.
10:29They're a really, really solid bunch
10:31and it's been a dream to work with them.
10:33He knows his movies big time
10:35and I'm a complete nerd when it comes to movies,
10:38so it's been good.
10:40This is Russell Crowe, apparently.
10:42He sets a great example,
10:44showing people that you don't have to shout
10:47or be forceful in order to get the work done.
10:50Cos, you know, some of the scenes are really quite horrific
10:54and to make them believable,
10:56you've actually got to be experiencing these emotions
10:59and he's been really patient
11:02and always given us space.
11:04Encourages coming to set with an open mind about things,
11:07even in terms of the dialogue
11:09and sometimes I find that frustrating.
11:13In other situations I find it frustrating
11:15when you get new lines on the day
11:17or why don't we try it completely different to how it's written,
11:20but in this experience it's been really enlightening, actually,
11:23and lots of fun.
11:27It's not improvising,
11:29it's maybe a bit more ad-libbing
11:32and thinking of all the possibilities you could play the scene in.
11:35He's very collaborative, absolutely knows what he wants,
11:38but is confident enough, I guess, in his abilities
11:41to actually, you know, take the best of everybody's contributions.
11:45I remember him saying that he wasn't interested in us
11:48playing one-dimensional characters.
11:54Come on, Jessie, it's freezing. Let's go back to the car.
11:57And I think in horror it's very easy to do that
12:00and horror can easily rely heavily on a formula.
12:04And he really allowed us to, you know, flesh these characters out,
12:09give them lots of different levels,
12:11give them a backstory and we really worked hard on those backstories.
12:14I think we would have taken the normal safety procedures
12:17and kind of worked out roughly what the route is
12:21and I think if Paul is there, he also could be there
12:25because they have had an affair,
12:27there's all that other stuff that...
12:30I don't know, that's just... I always read it, that's how it was.
12:33At first I thought the script was a lot more sort of caricatured,
12:36that the women were a bit more sort of stylised
12:39and slightly unrealistic.
12:41The script is relentlessly linear in terms of, you know,
12:44we never revisit anything, it just keeps moving straight forward
12:47and I think the environment through which the characters move
12:50has stayed pretty much the same.
12:52The action hasn't really changed at all,
12:54the actual story progression and the physical action
12:58that happens with it hasn't changed at all.
13:00In draft one, there was a cave entrance and they abseiled down
13:03and then they went down the sinkhole, the...
13:06What's it called? I can't remember what it's called.
13:08Down the pipe.
13:09I can't remember what that space is called,
13:11but they move through basically exactly the same physical spaces
13:14in the first draft as they're going to in the film.
13:16The other side.
13:18You come up, hand on the rock, right hand on the rock,
13:21look to where Fleur is gone.
13:24She's gone.
13:26And then you hear the screaming behind you,
13:28so then roll back over again to that side,
13:30look back there and then haul yourself out and take yourself back.
13:33But the characters have just gone from strength to strength
13:36and become much more real and more human.
13:39And it's just been a question of just adding layers to them.
13:42I call it the flaky pastry principle.
13:44And I find it fantastic that we can explore those metaphors
13:53in such a tactile way.
13:58I think that is something that is missing from a lot of art nowadays.
14:02For me, as an Asian actor, one of the key things was
14:06that it wasn't written as an Asian character,
14:09it was an opportunity for me to play a really well-thought-out character,
14:13which is very full.
14:15I am... Sarah.
14:18I haven't had a chance to say that I'm really sorry
14:22for staying around longer after the accident.
14:24And that, for any actor, is a real blessing.
14:27You don't come across those sorts of characters very often.
14:30Each character has some kind of a highlight moment.
14:32And of those moments, I love it when the character of Holly gets angry.
14:35She starts off as very happy-go-lucky,
14:37and at a certain point she gets angry and she flares up.
14:40Don't try to pin this fucking shite on me!
14:42It's really, really fun to play, and she dies horribly.
14:46I shouldn't really say that, should I?
14:48I love the fact that Sarah and Juno go a little bit mental,
14:52and when they get into the physical action,
14:54things get pretty interesting there.
15:04From its original conception,
15:06I envisioned this film as being very, very dark,
15:08both in tone and in visual style,
15:11to make it as dark as possible.
15:13When you think it's dark, when you turn out the lights,
15:17down there, it's pitch black.
15:19Neil's produced a beautiful script that really helped.
15:22It's very easy to see the flow of the spaces, the caves,
15:26large, big, huge spaces going down to little, tiny spaces.
15:30What's great on the set is that you can allow yourself
15:33to give life to that panic that you do feel,
15:36because if you're in an enclosed space,
15:38you do feel that claustrophobia and you do feel that fear.
15:41But when you're in a caving situation,
15:43you can't really give life to that fear,
15:47because being panicked, obviously, is hugely dangerous.
15:55It's something where if you start thinking about it,
15:57it's freaky, so you just don't,
15:59cos you know that if you would think about it,
16:01if you think about it masses and masses and masses,
16:03it breaks a lot of you.
16:05You go a bit mad, but you just don't.
16:07Quite a few members of the crew are claustrophobic,
16:09and they've been shuddering when they go onto some of the stages
16:12and see the spaces that the actresses have to crawl through.
16:15It was a challenge.
16:17I had to concentrate on breathing when we were doing the caving.
16:28I'm a big sissy.
16:30I can get my head round most things.
16:32That does scare me, cos I've got quite a vivid imagination.
16:35I just want to ask you about the vagina.
16:37Sorry, I mean cave. Are you impressed with it?
16:40Does it conform to your specifications?
16:44It's a lovely, tight crack.
16:46What can I say?
16:48Tomorrow morning at six o'clock,
16:50the slime is arriving to lubricate the cave with.
16:54Seriously? Yeah.
16:56Oh, that's you.
16:58What do you think of the vagina?
17:00The vagina's fantastic.
17:07I mean, tell me what your line is in this scene.
17:10What, going through the large vagina?
17:13Yeah. I get to yell...
17:15What is it?
17:17Oh, yeah, it's a tight crack, but I can make it.
17:19What I love about this kind of stuff is that you just throw this stuff at it.
17:23You just come up with these daft ideas, you put them in it,
17:26and people can just read whatever they want into it.
17:29There's quite a lot to read into it.
17:31Fine, be my guest.
17:33Do you mind if you've got...
17:35Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.
17:37LAUGHTER
17:41I didn't want there to be any real gratuitous light sources in this cave.
17:45It's proving a problem as we're filming it,
17:47to suddenly think, how are we going to light this scene?
17:50Because they've only got a box of matches on them.
17:53So we use a box of matches.
17:55I don't know how we're going to do it, but we use a box of matches.
18:07Ready?
18:09Toward the end of the film, they start setting things on fire,
18:12and it gets a bit easier for us.
18:14Action!
18:16We had a few different ways of creating the caves.
18:19Some of them were moulded,
18:21so we took moulds from real existing cliff faces,
18:24like the one behind me,
18:26which was a real hard slate structure.
18:29And other caves were more dribbly,
18:31kind of with stalactites, kind of calcium deposits.
18:35We've dressed in little wax stalactites,
18:37so when the girls are coming in,
18:39they're showing their torch around the space.
18:41The little wax stalactites backlight,
18:43and they should light up nicely.
18:45We used the same material, same foam, spray.
18:48We just used it in different ways.
18:50You actually have to kind of see them to believe them,
18:53because they're these really realistic caves,
18:56and alcoves, and tunnels,
18:59which suddenly open up into these huge sort of rooms,
19:04filled with the most amazing stone architecture.
19:08And it's all a form of polystyrene,
19:11which is just mind-blowing.
19:13Simon's done a fantastic job on the production design,
19:16but we do have a problem of not having enough money
19:19to make the set stretch throughout the whole story.
19:22We were looking at building a very expensive tank,
19:25made of metal, and big, and robust,
19:28and people were talking about how many gallons
19:31of water it was going to take.
19:33So to make it simple, I just said,
19:35well, we should shoot it in a bath.
19:37We've created a system where we're revamping the caves,
19:40so we're only basically building six caves,
19:42but changing the look through color and texture,
19:44so adding stalactites, maybe making one of them wet,
19:47one of them very dry and dusty.
19:49So we're hopefully fooling the audience
19:51into thinking that the cave system
19:53is much bigger than what we're actually building.
19:55Yes, we've reused the wall, the back wall.
19:57On the entrance chamber, it was very kind of flat,
20:00and then for the cathedral cavern,
20:02we've hoisted up that side eight foot
20:05to make the striations run diagonally,
20:07to hopefully change the look of it.
20:09Also on the entrance chamber, we had lots of plants growing on it
20:12and water pouring down it.
20:14The cathedral cavern was very dry.
20:16This time, it's very wet.
20:18We covered it in lots of stalactites
20:20to change the look of it.
20:22It's great to work with,
20:24because although you're surrounded by a crew
20:26and cameras on several sides,
20:29you can sort of just turn your face slightly
20:31and it's as if you're actually in a real cave,
20:34and you get the same sense of claustrophobia
20:36that you get when you're caving.
20:38For the bone dam set,
20:40we had only, I think, four days
20:42to revamp it from one set,
20:44which was the cathedral cavern,
20:46to the bone dam.
20:48All right, now we can start again.
20:50It involved basically laying down a 50-foot square tank.
20:53I wanted the set to be very wet,
20:55so there's like a one-inch tank of water.
20:59Covering the floor
21:01and applying all these big stalactite structures
21:03and these big columns
21:05looking like it's made of a calcium deposit of some sort.
21:07It's really weird,
21:09and you're not really sure
21:11if the towers are made of bones themselves.
21:13Then we had 500 bones made,
21:15dressed in around the floor
21:17as if they'd been washed up against the structures.
21:19It looked pretty good. It's big.
21:21Action!
21:29And cut!
21:31And roll.
21:33They've done a sterling job
21:35in ripping sets apart
21:37and putting them back together
21:39in a different order
21:41to make a new set,
21:43and that's sort of become
21:45a slight challenge now,
21:47but because they're so good at what they do,
21:49it's not that much of a problem for me.
21:51It's a 5P room.
21:53What's that?
21:55Prep room.
21:57What's that?
21:59Preparation prevents piss-poor performance.
22:01If we'd have had more money, let's say,
22:03we could have done a few shots differently.
22:05We've built big sets on this production,
22:07but there are some shots
22:09that we could have gone further back
22:11and back and back
22:13and seen a huge, amazing space.
22:15We are extending some of the sets
22:17using visual effects,
22:19so we're doing matte paintings
22:21to make them feel larger than they really are,
22:23but it would have been nicer
22:26if we could have done that.
22:28We're doing all the creatures.
22:30Time beans.
22:32A thousand bones that we manufactured.
22:34All the prosthetic violence
22:36towards the humans.
22:38Really?
22:40All the dead animals,
22:42two goats, two sheep, two cows,
22:44giant elk.
22:46I made this last night,
22:48pretty much overnight.
22:50Ripped it up, carved it from a tree.
22:52Neil wanted maggots
22:55on the giant dead elk we made.
22:57I have an absolute phobia against maggots,
22:59and that's one reason I didn't go to Scotland
23:01to film the giant dead elk scene.
23:03It's just because I can't deal with
23:05being anywhere near maggots.
23:07Don't touch it.
23:09You wouldn't want to pit it off.
23:11What do you think did that, Sam?
23:13A bear?
23:15What is it? Nature detectors?
23:17Could have been Bigfoot, for all you know.
23:19Come on.
23:21Seeing how
23:23the prosthetics guys work,
23:25that is incredible.
23:27I didn't realize how much time and effort
23:29goes into that.
23:31Human prosthetics,
23:33basically, all the girls get something
23:35apart from Sarah.
23:37Before we started filming,
23:39I came in and I did a full body cast.
23:41They just put it in mold and made a full
23:43prosthetic of my body
23:45for, obviously, when I'm dead
23:47and throwing me down a pit.
23:53In there is mascara,
23:55not eyelashes.
23:57And, basically, that,
23:59I won't do it now, but that
24:01clips onto that, which is a cast of her
24:03waist upwards.
24:05And what we do is
24:07basically put a layer of wax
24:09inside, close them,
24:11put a porcelain pour.
24:13We get a smooth wax body out,
24:15which we re-sculpt all together.
24:17Yeah, go from there.
24:19It's really bizarre.
24:22It's not nice at all, actually.
24:24It looks really real.
24:26But your arms, like, twisted sideways and stuff.
24:28Yeah, a bit odd.
24:32Oh!
24:34Buggers!
24:36Who do I throw it at?
24:38Where's Billy?
24:40We have Sam, who gets her throat ripped out.
24:42That's a prosthetic,
24:44which
24:46is a throat piece,
24:48which will go around her neck,
24:51and there's a little plug, which is put in,
24:53and it will all be coloured to her,
24:55and her throat literally gets ripped out
24:57and blood will gush out.
24:59You look gorgeous.
25:01Hello.
25:03No!
25:05Juno will get
25:07her leg stabbed.
25:09Paul, at the start,
25:11gets a scaffold pulled through his head.
25:13Action.
25:15Shoot me in the face.
25:17I make the head fall out,
25:19and Holly gets her neck ripped out.
25:21Oh, my God!
25:23I just had a neck piece
25:25just wrapped around with...
25:27It was a gusher.
25:29And that was quite fun.
25:31As well as a compound fracture to her leg.
25:33The scene where Holly breaks her leg
25:35is actually quite horrific.
25:37Everybody, grab a corner.
25:39We need to move her out of the water.
25:41OK.
25:44OK.
25:46Nice and easy now.
25:48It was just a slip-on prosthetic of my leg.
25:50Bones and ligaments
25:52and basically a pump,
25:54a blood pump.
25:56This was the actual prosthetic,
25:58which was used on Holly,
26:00which basically is a silicone skin,
26:02which was just a slip-on,
26:04and we had some bone pieces,
26:06which would go in,
26:08and basically there was blood tubing
26:10coming each way,
26:13which would just bleed and bleed and bleed,
26:15and as Sam tries to push a bone in,
26:17which it would just slip in like that,
26:19blood would just absolutely gush out.
26:21No!
26:23Ah!
26:25Keep fighting down, baby.
26:27Keep fighting down.
26:29It was brilliant.
26:31Just trying to do something a bit different,
26:33which hasn't been seen before.
26:35Magnificent performance.
26:37Bravo.
26:43They're cavemen who didn't leave the cave,
26:45and they've evolved in this environment
26:47over thousands of years.
26:49A community of them have done,
26:51you know, there's families,
26:53and they thrive in this underground environment.
26:55They've lost their eyesight.
26:57They have acute hearing and smell,
26:59and they're expert climbers,
27:01so they can go up any rock face,
27:03and they function perfectly in the pitch black,
27:05and that is their world,
27:07and these girls infringe upon their world,
27:09and the crawlers are simply defending their territory.
27:11The inspiration for the crawlers came from Neil,
27:13who was very definite about it.
27:15What a lovely creation here.
27:17You want some of your log?
27:19Yes.
27:21I'm going to tease him with my log.
27:23He was sort of saying that, basically,
27:25he wanted them to have a slight influence on Nosferatu.
27:27He wanted to sort of have a slight vampiric design,
27:29but not looking like a vampire.
27:31Take these out.
27:33Oh, they come out?
27:35Yes.
27:38It was just the idea of,
27:40like, if you were going to have these creatures living underground,
27:42what would they be?
27:44Where would they come from?
27:46And elements came into the story
27:48of, like, finding a cave painting
27:50as if it was a prehistoric cave painting,
27:52and I thought, well, OK, so cavemen,
27:54what if they were cavemen,
27:56and what if they were actually more human?
27:58Because to me, making them more human makes them more scary.
28:00What did you see?
28:02A man. I saw a man.
28:04Are you sure?
28:07I saw someone before, but now I'm sure.
28:09Look, if there is somebody down here,
28:11then maybe they can help get us out.
28:13He gave me a Photoshop design that he'd done.
28:15It was really good,
28:17but originally it had huge eyes,
28:19and we'd done a test,
28:21which wasn't really what we all wanted.
28:23LAUGHTER
28:30I'm a fire starter.
28:32So we basically kept working on sculptures
28:34and making it smaller, more human.
28:36We went with contact lenses
28:38and gave them more human quality.
28:40Where would you like me?
28:42And it would have taken about...
28:46about four weeks
28:48to lock down the final design
28:50that worked better as a porcelain.
28:52What's your back like?
28:54Pull me off.
28:56Oh, you fucking...
28:58Oh, you scared me.
29:00Oh, my God.
29:02Where are you?
29:05Water.
29:07LAUGHTER
29:09The Klingon
29:11and Spock had a child,
29:13and it was totally hairless
29:15and a bit shorter
29:17and quite sinewy
29:19and was cousins with Gollum.
29:21That's basically
29:23what a crawler looks like.
29:25It's like the natural bond smoker,
29:27a weedy, scrawny,
29:29horrible, dangly thing.
29:31We wanted to sort of cross between
29:34a creature that lived in a cave
29:36but with a slight change
29:38in their bone structure and their spines
29:40and almost like they've evolved
29:42one stage into a bat.
29:44These creatures have these fantastic ears
29:46which have been created,
29:48which is how they survive
29:50and move around.
29:52Their ears are their main sensory part.
29:54GROWLING
29:56SLURPING
29:58SLURPING
30:00SLURPING
30:02I met Neil a few years ago
30:04through a friend
30:06and he invited me to work
30:08on a short film with him called Combat
30:10which was just fantastic
30:12and everybody just jumped in there
30:14and done that for a weekend.
30:16Then he invited me on to Dog Soldiers
30:18which was tremendous
30:20and then this came up
30:22and he said, look, come and be a beast.
30:24Craig Conway and Les Simpson
30:26are my actors of choice
30:28that they have been
30:31in every film that I've made
30:33one way or another
30:35and it was pretty difficult
30:37to get the idea
30:39I'm making an all-female ensemble film
30:41where am I going to get them in?
30:43Then it occurred to me
30:45what if they play the crawlers
30:47and I wasn't sure if they'd be up for it
30:49but they were well up for it
30:51but I also wanted to use them as crawlers
30:53because I wanted actors
30:55rather than say dancers
30:57or whatever to play the part
31:00and you allow all of the circumstances
31:02around you to create the illusion
31:04of the character within that.
31:10Because the makeup that they have
31:12allows them to express themselves fully
31:14both physically and facial expressions.
31:16Do you want me to put me on your forehead?
31:18It's a complete cynical movement.
31:20That's wonderful.
31:22To let yourself go in something like this
31:24you have to trust your body
31:26and although you have to be conscious
31:28of what you're doing
31:30and choreograph certain things
31:32there just has to be a sense
31:34of freedom
31:36and I think that's how
31:38you can confidently pull off
31:40being a beast.
31:42Putting actors in those suits
31:44is just the best of both worlds.
31:46Puppets got a head like a ping-pong ball
31:48Puppets got a head like a ping-pong ball
31:50Puppets got a head like a ping-pong ball
31:52Ping-pong ping-pong ping-pong ping-pong ping-pong ping-pong ping-pong wall
31:54Ping-ping pong ping-ping ping-ping ping-king dong
31:56It's fantastic to play this undercover actor, you know I can go on, do what I want and create
32:05something which I hope is entertaining and frightening and a bit off the wall and then
32:10I can sit back and know that nobody on this planet is going to go, oh that's him, he plays
32:15that piece and that's great for me because I like the kind of anonymity of it all, it's
32:20nice.
32:21I'm out of here.
32:22To make up a crawler every day was about a three and a half hour job.
32:25We'd come in, start with the face and then basically put the contact lenses in.
32:30Your teeth be alright?
32:31Yeah, yeah.
32:32No problem.
32:33No.
32:34That's good.
32:35Rawr.
32:36Teeth in and then full body paint job which would take about two hours.
32:40In order to apply the make-up and the veins and the prosthetics we've all had to shave
32:49every part of our bodies which is rather embarrassing.
32:53Oh, not at this time.
32:55Why not?
32:56It's too early.
32:57Too early.
32:58Why not?
32:59Why?
33:00Are you coming back in the dark?
33:01Yeah, it's a bit sort of.
33:02Is he naked?
33:03Yeah, we're doing his nads and stuff.
33:05Originally it took about five hours to be made up.
33:08So it's ten past seven when I was tricked up this morning, it's now, what time is it?
33:16It's now twenty-five past three.
33:20But now they've dropped that down to three and a half hours so it's somewhere between
33:23three and a half to four hours and then throughout the day there's constant touch-ups.
33:27Basically we tried to give them all a distinct personality.
33:32There's one that's called Scar who gets sliced and he was a real vicious nasty creature so
33:38we sort of gave him these lip pieces that pulled down his lips almost like a dog's snarling.
33:43He always had that sour face.
33:49Females we gave them a slightly witchy sour look whilst we didn't want any good-looking
33:54girl quarters so they're all ugly.
33:56I can still see that it's me.
33:57I saw a picture of myself.
33:58Well, it's different when you're looking in the mirror but when I saw a picture of myself
34:01I could still see my face.
34:04And the rest of them just had little sort of quirky different shaped ears.
34:09Some looked angrier, some looked a bit dopey.
34:12Scar, jump!
34:13Scar, jump!
34:18I made a deliberate point of keeping the crawlers away from the girls.
34:23I just wanted to see what the effect would be.
34:25Action!
34:26I think I found the way through!
34:35It's been very mysterious.
34:37We haven't been allowed to see them at all until the scene.
34:40I was saying to the girls, I said, I feel like I'm actually making a drama because we
34:45hadn't come across the crawlers and they come into the film quite late.
34:49We knew he was around, sort of on location and some of the girls would kind of be hiding
34:56out seeing if they could kind of catch a glimpse of him.
34:58Well, it was bloody good for me.
35:00I got closer to the women than I've ever been before.
35:04Didn't quite get my teeth into them but they didn't make me drool at the mouth, so to speak.
35:09Wonderful.
35:10I actually think it was a really good idea because it did build up an anticipation, an
35:16adrenaline.
35:17I'm sorry.
35:18I was shoving him in that hole that we're about to go in.
35:20That was his ass, eh?
35:21Are you putting him in the hole?
35:22Look how hairy.
35:23Please don't.
35:24It's good.
35:25Puss who?
35:26Hey.
35:27Are you having a horse?
35:28What do you want to know?
35:29No, I don't.
35:30What's behind the mark?
35:31There's a crawler on the side.
35:32What's behind the mark?
35:33There's a crawler on the side.
35:34What's behind the mark?
35:35There's a crawler on the side.
35:36What's behind the mark?
35:37There's a crawler on the side.
35:38It was me.
35:41They were getting really, really nervous about meeting the crawlers for the first time.
35:45They didn't know what to expect.
35:46They hadn't seen any pictures.
35:47They had no idea what they were going to look like.
35:49I don't think love is going to blossom from this meeting.
35:54I can't imagine.
35:56It's like your worst blind date ever, isn't it?
35:59I mean, imagine if this fucker turned up at your door.
36:02They just scared the living daylight out of me.
36:04We were supposed to stand still.
36:07I was screaming at the other side of the room within three seconds.
36:10They just snapped.
36:12They went running off into the dark screaming.
36:14For weeks, they'd been building up this image of being these really hard-ass, tough-as-nails girls.
36:20As soon as the crawler shows up, it's hands in the air and running away like a big bunch of pansies.
36:27Oh, fuck it!
36:28Hello!
36:29Please!
36:30Is there anybody there?
36:33Hello!
36:35Yes!
36:43When you first come out, people go,
36:45Oh, right, right, that's interesting.
36:47But because it was in the scene,
36:49the girls were expecting something and didn't know what to expect.
36:52And, of course, you arrive and they get a shock
36:54and you kind of get a shock as well.
36:56And it was just brilliant.
36:57It was fantastic to be hidden away from them.
36:59And a lot of fun.
37:01A lot of fun.
37:03And fighting them,
37:05it's a whole other thing.
37:07It was actually really difficult.
37:09Because I was fighting a man!
37:11I was actually wrestling a guy.
37:13And that was hard work.
37:15Action.
37:17There, that's it, yes.
37:19There, good.
37:21And fighting on that sand,
37:23it was like glass just cutting your skin.
37:25So whenever we call about on all fours
37:27and fight on the floor,
37:29everybody's getting lacerated.
37:31And it's burning.
37:33And it's taking our skin away.
37:35Soon we'll all look like crawlers permanently.
37:37I had beautiful skin before I came here.
37:39I was almost offered a modelling contract with Clinique.
37:41But now, look at me.
37:43I've gone to Wrecking Room within days.
37:45But at the end, I was sort of like,
37:47Wow, yeah, you did that, girl.
37:49Good on you.
37:51Here you come.
37:53Hopefully the audience will find them creepy.
37:55That was one thing that I wanted,
37:57was that they'd look at them and go,
37:59They're quite nasty, horrible-looking things.
38:01No hair.
38:03Scenery.
38:05Sort of gaunt.
38:07Just hopefully to be a bit creeped out by them, basically.
38:09I'm absolutely over the moon
38:11with the way that the crawlers have turned out.
38:13They are incredibly physical
38:15and virile and fierce-looking.
38:17And their coloring and everything.
38:19It's all to do with being in the pitch dark.
38:21And what's your worst nightmare underground?
38:23And meeting these guys
38:25is pretty much your worst nightmare.
38:29Oh!
38:33The worst part of working on this film
38:35is without a doubt
38:37being very cold and very wet
38:39and very tired.
38:41Just being cold.
38:43Getting so filthy
38:45that you need about two showers.
38:50Your social life kind of doesn't exist
38:52when you're doing this film.
38:54The cold water.
38:56Lying in cold water.
38:59How long it takes
39:01to shower all the muck off
39:03at the end of the day.
39:07Having to perform scenes
39:09with great passion
39:11while being freezing cold
39:13down to the bone.
39:15Sometimes at the end of the day
39:17you've got tears and blood
39:19and all this stuff all over your face
39:21and you kind of just look in the mirror
39:23and think, Did I do that?
39:25But it's been wicked.
39:27It's been a very dark shooting
39:29very much stressful and busy
39:31and lots of things can go wrong
39:33but it's been a real pleasure
39:35working with this bunch of people
39:37for the last seven weeks.
39:39The best part of working on this film
39:41has been the people, without a doubt.
39:43Going to Scotland
39:45and doing quite a lot of rafting.
39:47The people.
39:49Really good fun.
39:51I've had such a laugh.
39:53The best thing is to see
39:55a friend making a film
39:57and actually being on a set
39:59with a lot of people that I know
40:01and seeing everybody
40:03giving a lot of effort towards making a good movie.
40:05Every day of the shoot
40:07has just been a blast.
40:09Something's happened. Something funny.
40:13Something spectacular.
40:15There's been a great stunt
40:17or some great dramatic sequence
40:19or something like that.
40:21I started thinking about
40:23what I'm going to do next
40:25because I want to be on another film set
40:27by Christmas
40:29in an ideal world
40:31because I can't get enough of it.
40:33It's just the best job in the universe
40:35and I've loved every second of it.
40:39Neil's always got a little twist
40:41in what he does
40:43and I think this one just doesn't stop.
40:45It's a bit relentless and a bit off the wall
40:47and Neil's just got a magnificent imagination
40:49which I think
40:51that's what this film is.
40:53It's an exploration of his mind
40:55and I don't want to be in his mind
40:57because it's scary.
41:01No, I think that's good enough.
41:03Good enough.
41:20The alternative ending
41:22was something that I kind of toyed with
41:24when I was in the edit the first time around.
41:26It was never something that I thought about
41:28when I was writing the script.
41:38But I knew how it was going to end
41:40from the start
41:42in terms of her being trapped in the cave
41:44partly because
41:46when we were writing it
41:48the script had a different title.
41:50It was called The Dark.
41:54But it was to do with the idea
41:56of her being kind of
41:58absorbed or swallowed up
42:00or being at one with the dark at the end of the film.
42:08What happened to you?
42:12So I knew she was going to stay in the cave
42:14that the darkness would finally claim her.
42:17Obviously we changed the title
42:19and quite a lot of things changed along the way as well.
42:23But I still wanted her to stay down there.
42:35That was the ending I scripted.
42:37That was the ending that we'd all agreed on.
42:39I set out to make a film
42:41with as bleak an ending as possible
42:44and that was it.
42:46So I didn't want her to get out of the cave.
42:48But when I was editing the film
42:50and we were having difficulty
42:52just getting
42:54the long form ending
42:56right
42:58at one point I was in frustration
43:00and I said,
43:02why don't we just cut it here?
43:04Let's see how that works.
43:14We played it out and we said,
43:16OK, so that kind of works,
43:18but what does it say about the film?
43:20What does it say about the ending?
43:22What does it say about the characters?
43:24Ultimately we agreed that we were going to
43:26skip that and try and push
43:28and complete the ending as was written.
43:40And that's what we did
43:43and that was released in the UK
43:45and throughout the rest of the world.
43:49But this was almost like a second chance
43:51to do something different
43:53and I thought,
43:55let's try it with the other ending,
43:57see how it plays.
44:05We tested it in the US
44:07with the UK ending
44:09and it scored pretty high,
44:12around that kind of area.
44:14And then we tested it
44:16with the short ending
44:18and it tested up in the 80s.
44:20Following on from the test screenings
44:22and the test results,
44:24certainly Lionsgate were happier
44:26to go with the short ending
44:28because that had tested better
44:30and that was it,
44:32that's what it boiled down to,
44:34what I said earlier,
44:36which is that physically
44:38she makes it out of the cave.
44:40It doesn't provide a happy ending,
44:42it doesn't provide much of an optimism,
44:44she's lost everything and everyone
44:46that she ever loved
44:48and she's gone completely out of her mind
44:50but physically she's out of the cave
44:52so I guess that offers a degree of hope.
44:57Whereas in my original ending
44:59she doesn't make it out of the cave,
45:01she's clearly gone out of her mind
45:03and she has no hope whatsoever.
45:05Because that's what I figured
45:07was the right place for her,
45:10why even dangle it like a carrot
45:12in front of her face?
45:14That just seems cooler
45:16to put her back into the outside world
45:18because she's just going to suffer forever more.
45:20Because that was, as written,
45:22never intended to be the ending,
45:24I couldn't really say what I intended
45:26people to take from it
45:28because you cut the film short
45:30and suddenly it opens up a whole new ballpark.
45:32Some people don't even recognise
45:34that it's Juno in the car with her,
45:36some people might assume
45:38that she's a ghost
45:40and any one of these things
45:42is like, what does it mean,
45:44where does this take the story
45:46and then it cuts
45:48so you're left with that hanging.
45:50I think unavoidably
45:52I bring my editor's sensibility
45:54to anything that I'm making
45:56and I guess part of that
45:58in terms of endings
46:00is a lot of horror films
46:02you do have the false endings
46:04and you do have the extra little
46:06twist in the tale
46:08or a last shock moment
46:10or something just to get the audience with
46:12so it plays along to those kind of rules
46:14and as such it's almost
46:16an ending in itself
46:18which we then take on
46:20so it wasn't like
46:22we're cheating in any way
46:24by having that as an ending.
46:26It was an ending,
46:28it's just in our version,
46:30in the longer version
46:32we took that ending
46:34I personally prefer
46:36the longer version,
46:38the UK ending.
46:40I like what that says
46:42about the character.
46:44It's a payoff as well
46:46as far as the flashbacks
46:48and the visions
46:50that she's been having
46:52throughout the story
46:54with her daughter
46:56and the birthday cake
46:58and all that kind of stuff
47:00because she was due to celebrate
47:02before she died
47:04and that leaves her
47:06in a certain place
47:08where in her own mind
47:10she's with her daughter
47:12and therefore that's the only
47:14sense of happiness
47:16that she might ever find again
47:18but outwardly she's clearly
47:20gone insane.
47:22It's kind of borrowed
47:24from Terry Gilliam's
47:26original ending of Brazil
47:28which is that concept
47:30of a happy ending regardless
47:32of their physical circumstances.
47:34I just found that really fascinating
47:36but it's also
47:38as I've said along the way
47:40the whole film is very much
47:42a homage or tribute to
47:44the horror films I grew up with
47:46in the 70s and 80s and I loved
47:48the endings of films like The Thing
47:50which is just so unremittingly bleak
47:52and leaves very little
47:54in the way of hope.
47:56The characters aren't dead
47:58they're just in the way of optimism
48:00and I just wanted to achieve that
48:02kind of thing and I think
48:04that's what I achieve more
48:06with the UK ending but the US ending
48:08is actually more in keeping with
48:10the ending of the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre
48:12where again she escapes
48:14but she's clearly lost her mind.
48:16So
48:18both endings
48:20in their own way pay tribute
48:22to different 70s horror films
48:24that inspired me hugely.
48:28you