By JOEL HARLEY
It’s no slight on Neil Marshall’s career to say that it probably peaked with THE DESCENT. Look, Dog Soldiers is one of the best werewolf movies ever made. Doomsday is a fun work of post-apocalyptic action. His Hellboy is vastly underrated. Even The Lair recaptured a certain energy some of his more recent releases lack. Sure, the man has made a few clunkers in his time, but he’ll always be responsible for the single greatest horror film of the last three decades with THE DESCENT.
Twenty years on from its release, and with a 4K restoration hitting cinemas, THE DESCENT resurfaces with an official novelization by author Christian Francis, whose other works include his Maniac Cop trilogy and Wishmaster and Doghouse novelizations. Much of what made THE DESCENT such a success is its wonderfully rounded characterization, so it’s unlikely we’ll find drastic new depths. Still, any time spent in the company of these fabulous women is welcome.
If the already well-established characters can take care of themselves, then Francis blazes his own path with an all-new prologue. Set in the summer of 1939, it features a pair of unlucky miners and their encounter with… Well, we all know what lurks down in those caves. Grisly, alarming and unexpected, it gets the book off to a strong start, a promise that this official novelization has more on its mind than treading familiar ground.
The rest of the book faithfully (give or take a line of dialogue or two) follows the trajectory of Marshall’s screenplay, from the inciting tragedy to the friends’ journey to rural North Carolina. It’s been 25 years, but we still remember the six women: grieving Sarah; sensible Beth, thrill-seeker Holly, bickering sisters Sam and Rebecca. And then there’s Juno, of course, one of the most compelling characters in all of horror cinema.
Such well-drawn personalities don’t give Francis a lot of wiggle room for artistic license, but the author does good work in understanding what makes them tick. In looking for an angle, this also means that the antagonism between Beth and Juno is dialed up, giving a little more dimension to their fractured friendship. It’s a valid thread and a fine handhold for the author to latch onto. However, the book does seem more interested in exploring that than Sarah’s trauma, to the point where it clumsily derails the film’s most powerful moment.
Trapped in one of the cave’s more claustrophobic passages, Sarah begins to panic, the weight of her grief pressing down on her shoulders. That, and the very literal mountain above her. Then, as her friend enters full-on panic attack mode, Beth attempts to talk her down:
“The worst thing that could happen to you… has already happened to you. The thing that you would fear the most. It’s over. And you’re here right now on the other side of the world. You didn’t give up then. And here and now? This is just a poxy little cave. You’ve got nothing left to be afraid of. Especially from this stupid rock.”
A bit longer than Marshall’s version, but the sentiment is intact. Unfortunately, one of the most profound statements on grief ever put to film is then immediately derailed by Book Beth’s vendetta with Juno – and over a page of malicious gossip that ends in an, uh, anal sex joke. With friends like these, who needs cave-dwelling cannibals, eh? Thankfully, it’s largely back on track from there, as the women plunge straight on to their encounter with the Crawlers lurking deeper within.
At a scant 200 pages, it’s a brisk read, made even more so by the decision to power through certain events. While Marshall’s version is all about the build-up (to the point where it’s almost more effective than the high-octane action which follows), this novelization skims certain passages, such as the crossing of the chasm, for instance, and Holly’s injury. It’s an unexpectedly rushed retelling of the story, not taking its time to linger in the dark as the film does, wasting some of that wonderful claustrophobia.
The book does add a little more dimension to less-explored characters like Sam, Rebecca and Beth. Beth’s animosity toward Juno doesn’t do her any favors, but it’s an extra layer that’s not quite there in the film, and therefore, an angle worth pursuing – even if it does make certain interactions more disconcerting than they perhaps should have been.
In THE DESCENT, Francis faces the unenviable task of adapting a bona fide masterpiece. It’s no slight to say that he falls short. Anyone would. The Descent 2 certainly did, just like Marshall himself in the following two decades. Perhaps not the deep-dive fans of the film want, the official movie novelization is an enjoyable speedrun of the story, packed with all the thrills and spills you might remember… plus a few surprises.
THE DESCENT: THE OFFICIAL MOVIE NOVELIZATION is available now from Titan Books/Penguin Random House.
